E1x04: The Plot to Destroy Ben Ryan

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welcome to dog house with kelly kagan I know you guys are gonna tell me I'm crazy, but I think all gay men would benefit from a gender transition rihanna woo you know who rihanna woo is.
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It was uh people online.
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I said you have been here, so I don't.
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I don't remember what she has got more confused on girls or boys would be a better fit for me, and when you're bisexual and you have the potential for either, you gotta parse that out a little bit and taj tough.
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Having your story heard, having people empathize with you on that kind of political level, I think it's really hard to do.
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It's the Dollcast.
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Mostly normal women.
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Hi there and welcome to Dollcast, where real conversations meet a little bit of sparkle and sass.
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I'm your host, skylar, and we've got an exciting show today for you, with a mix of heartening topics and some lighthearted fun.
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As always, I can't do this alone, so let's introduce the fabulous co-hosts who keep the show lively and awesome.
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So first off, we have our wise and ever mystical muse, taftaj.
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She's here to drop some insight and a little bit of magic.
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How's it going, taft?
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to drop some insight and a little bit of magic.
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How's it going?
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Task it's doing, it's going good.
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I'm podcasting from swiss alps today, which is why I have a different god.
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Can you get like a swiss made costume and then wear it on the show.
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I don't even know what that looks like, but I would love to do that.
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That would be so fun.
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The swiss mist box, that's something that's very uh.
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It would work with your body type, I think I would say right, I'm thinking of what you're putting.
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It's yes, yeah, um no, that'd be awesome, for sure it's.
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It's really lovely here having lots of fun.
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So oh, we're happy you're able to join.
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Of course, no, we're so in a whole other time zone whole other country.
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It's amazing I was scrambling all week to have backup trans girls, just in case you couldn't make it.
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So there we go and that my friend is brianna woo.
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She's always holding us together and she's breaking down politics, or maybe she's winning at mario kart.
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I mean, she brings the energy and she brings the fire what's up, brie?
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What's going on with you?
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I just got back from Disney.
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So last week Frank and I were just like we're sitting there on Sunday.
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We're like God, I'm so sad that Trump won.
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And I'm like, wait, we don't have to be here in Boston, we can be anywhere.
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Do you want to just go down to Disney World and just spend like a week down there?
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So we'll work during the day for our hotel room and then go hit the parks at night and Frank's like, yeah, let's go put the dogs in jail, let's do it.
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So I literally just started like an escape from just the everyday, like drama and the politics, the politics that are going on right now.
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I don't blame you.
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Yeah, it's so good.
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I mean this it's okay.
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I mean this is something like you'll find, uh, as you uh get older, uh, sky is, you've really got to make time to put your marriage first, because stuff will happen and you just like, when hard times come, you got to make sure you're taking time for that.
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So this way, all my flaws, my marriage on the back burner.
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Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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No, you know what I'm saying.
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It's like so easy to forget that you know it's true, it's true no, my parents said the same thing and it's like, well, you know, um, I, I know I hear it and that's well, that's why we take trips like we do.
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We just, you know, I, I don't know if I were going to disney every you know year or so, but we are taking little, we take little trips.
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We do like hiking just anything to get out of the house and out in nature.
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That's, that's our way to do it.
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I mean, we don't have the money to necessarily go and take these grand trips, but, um, we do, we do budget for it once a year.
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That's like our way to do it, but let's, let's continue.
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We have to get to our final co-host, kelly cadigan, known for bringing the tea and a little bit of spice.
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Kelly, how are you doing this week?
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I'm doing really good, a lot better than I was on last week's show.
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That's very damn sure I'm ready to bring the positive vibe I loved last week's episode.
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it comes out tomorrow and it is honestly the best segment I think we've ever done like it.
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Just it turned into this, this emotional.
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I hope y'all will watch it Like this was us at our best, so it was good.
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It was just a downer.
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I mean, you know, do y'all ever worry about that with this show, that, like trans topics, like we were in our show meeting, we were really worried about this because, like this week, trans women are under attack with bathroom access.
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Yeah, nancy mace is trying to become the um american spinoff of jk rowling and you know she's about to put out, uh, some legislation that's going to affect, like, trans women in airport bathrooms, right?
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so it's harder core than jk rowling like in my opinion, I agree also like I get confused with jk because, like she started out, very like, I thought middle of the road, like okay, fine, like I get what, like what.
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Her first tweet, the one that like started everything, that was like forced women out of their like spaces or something, I honestly I I'm gonna forget that she was kind of moderate at first, yeah at first right, and now she's like.
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Now it's like okay, she's made it her own grift and it's all right but what I was just gonna say is, like, as far as the show itself, I I really worry about this because I don't want this.
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I I think this happens in trans spaces so often is it becomes doom and gloom, and I want, like, the focus of our show to be about four cool, like trans girls coming together, having friendship and having fun conversations too.
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So I don't know, that's something I was just worried about.
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I don't think it's all doom and gloom.
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I think it's tempting to feel that way right now, but for me it like I always think like the bigger picture, like right now in the first okay, you're four years Trump's in office, there's a right wing agenda and it's very trans.
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It's very critical of trans medicine and trans everything.
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That's like anything that has to do with gender nonconformity, I feel like is on the chopping block a little bit here, yeah, and it's like I don't think they're going to get to the point of coming after our hrt.
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But seeing nancy mace weaponize what's going on about, like you know, trans women as a threat because they're men is a little concerning yeah, it doesn't help that she looks quite masculine too do you think so?
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I think she's really pretty.
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Actually, I mean, I don't want to talk.
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I'm not wanting to talk about people's looks, but I just think, like I, she looks like someone that, like I, could be like.
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Oh, is that person maybe trans and like, not in a bad way, but just like this is what is that like with these bathroom bills?
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the trans hysteria is just at this fever pitch.
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You just know that there's people who they believe in their heads that they can like clock trans women perfectly.
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They cannot.
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And there's going to be masculine women or older women or women with pcos or whatever it is, who are getting harassed in restrooms because people are insane.
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So you're like exactly right, which is like these standards for femininity?
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They ultimately hurt women and that's really tragic.
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So I I've said this to you before taft that, like one of the cool things about getting older is, you know, uh, cis women they've had a lot of plastic surgery to look young, look pretty much the same as trans women with ffs.
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It's the exact same carefully sculpted feminine aesthetic that's slightly artificial and you don't know which one it is, so I don't think there's that much of a difference.
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To be honest, it's a good passing path.
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Can we just talk a little bit about the Nancy Mae, sarah McBride drama that has been all over X.
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I have not seen anything captivate the trans community like this, and when I say trans community I'm just talking about the big profiles on x with like the trans stuff and it's like I I have such mixed feelings about this because I, I I support nancy mace's like protect women and girls.
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I, I believe in protecting women and girls.
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I don't want fetishists or people whipping out their dick in the women's room like that's not okay.
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But do we feel like the whole, like scorched earth, all biological males are predators?
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Approach makes sense because I think it's absurd.
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Yeah, it's not about affecting women or girls to her.
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It's something way.
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It's rooted in transphobia.
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That's why I can't agree yeah.
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And yeah, no, I'm all for protecting people, obviously, but I think that, like this bathroom bill is such a good example of like, how false this sort of like pretense is for protecting women and girls, because harassing people in restrooms that is illegal, right and like if you're being harassed or assaulted like you can and should call the cops and report that and someone can and should be charged for that.
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And we don't need this extra line of like.
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Well, you know they shouldn't be in the bathroom because that's not really actually defending people.
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It's just about creating this like punitive state apparatus for, like policing which restroom people use in, um, and it doesn't work.
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Like, it doesn't make sense pragmatically either.
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Like it's just going to end up hurting like masculine women and, at the end of the day, I think it is so clearly just about transphobia and not actually about helping people, because I don't see any world in which a bathroom bill actually improves the outcomes, you know, reduces sexual assault.
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I just don't see that.
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I was in the bathroom last week and somebody asked me like they were out of like you know tampon and they asked me if I had anything Like they didn't even clock me as postmenopausal.
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I'm not a lesbian or trans woman.
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Do you know what I mean?
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Like it's this is not going to affect anyone on this show.
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Like it is going to target lesbians primarily and like the thing is they can treat us as partners to bring this crazy out of the trans community.
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There's a discussion we need to have as a trans community about people with beards that make no effort to pass walk into the ladies, because we've seen these TikToks, we know there's a portion of our community that wants to do this.
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But at the same time, like it is like like you can't do that if you're trying, like this scorched earth, all or nothing thinking, because all it does is force us to get our hackles up and then it turns into another stupid left versus right culture war where no public policy that addresses anyone's need is going to get like put forward.
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So so right, like, oh my gosh, okay, I, I'll share this so you can put this on the screen.
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But this picture y'all y'all remember, did y'all see this?
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No, oh my gosh, this whole, so this is exactly what we're talking about here.
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This the fetishist oh my God, yep Invading women's faces, and it's like, look, I'm completely against that too.
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Like, why is this person think that, oh yeah, because I'm wearing I don't know lingerie out in public, I get to go.
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And now, and I'm a woman, and I get to go in the women's space.
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It's like, no, that's so inappropriate, and so it's like I the.
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The problem is, is that, like, what recourse do women have to say no to that person being in their space?
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Right, yeah, I mean, I just think there needs to be like standards for how you exist in public, and if you're wearing like fetish gear in public, like frankly, I think that's something that can people should reasonably be able to remove you from their premises and, you know, know, if you're pulling out your penis, you should be charged with like assault in public, of course, of course this is so like common sense, is it?
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is it like the?
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Because fetish gear could be like what if they're not nude?
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Like it's like?
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I know it's still like.
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Oh, it's not.
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Well, it'll say like a full fetishist is wearing like sandals or something, right, oh yeah, and like, in their mind, they think it's sexy, whatever, or I don't know someone, they go out with their partner and they're in like a dom sub relationship and you know, the dom says, like you have to go order something from that counter or something.
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You are involving other people in your sexual fetish and those people are not consenting to that.
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I think that's, you know, really gross behavior.
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I don't think that's necessarily something that, like, we can legislate.
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And so for me, it comes back to like this, like pragmatic line in the sand.
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Like this, like pragmatic line in the sand where, like, if it's obvious that someone's engaging in fetishistic behavior, I think that's something that we socially can agree should be prohibited, maybe with law, right, and you know, in terms of going further, trying to get into people's heads, I don't think we can really do that effectively.
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We just have to accept that, like, okay, there might be a foot fetishist who wears sandals.
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That might happen.
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There's no way for us to know, um, but I think you mean we can't read minds.
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Yeah, I wish, right, um, but that's why these bathroom bills are so ridiculous to me is because you know, we talk about actual enforcement of them.
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Um, you're not going to have a police officer checking people's genitals or ids at the front of the door.
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Can't have that happen.
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So it has to happen after the fact.
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Right, you have to rely on everyday people to call the police and report suspicious behavior, which they should be doing anyways.
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If someone's engaging in rapey behavior, and so I don't really see the point except to aggravate the charges after the fact, and that also seems unnecessary to me um, maybe there's like argument to be had about that, in which case, like you, just you know, you don't make it illegal to enter the bathroom, but you say that, like, if you, you know, assault people in a public restroom, maybe that carries like an extra, you know, aggravating factor I, I don't know.
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I think this is where, like tanf, I know you are I don't want to say more sympathetic to the non-binary political project, but I think you are you're more well.
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I guess this is.
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The conflict that I feel here is that 20 years ago when I transitioned, all this stuff was on the honor system and trans women by and large understood we needed to fly under the radar and not cause a seam in there, and there was a lot of like, like.
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I can remember sister sharing pics with me.
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It would be like am I ready to use the bathroom yet?
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Do I need to get further into electro, like all that kind of stuff as you're doing RLE?
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There was an informal culture in trans spaces to not get in trouble, and that culture has switched where it's now an entitlement culture where people that I personally don't think are trans are like of course I belong in there.
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What are they going to do?
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It's very male coded, there's no effort to get along, and the only public policy solution I can personally think of for that is it comes down to either carry letters, like we used to have back in the day when you're starting RLE, or like what your legal gender is on your driver's license, of which I do think we need a process to start sorting that out, rather than just the honor system.
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I do think you should have a medicalized transition if you're going to have F on the driver's license.
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That doesn't necessarily mean vaginoplasty, but I think you need to be on a medical pathway certified by someone.
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So I think it's really hard when you have this gender expansionist project.
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Like, how do we handle those faces with those people?
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Because, like again, the california law happened, the we spot incident happened because of this non-binary political project here in massachusetts.
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I'm like 90 sure you can just go in there, no matter how you identify and like it's, it's a problem.
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Does that make sense?
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to you, I mean yes and no.
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So like, quite frankly, I think in a more sane country, you know, you would just have like a stalls room and maybe like a urinals room.
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The stalls room is bigger because stalls should not you should not be able to see people's feet and like see, you know, through the holes.
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That's nonsense.
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Like you should just be able to go into a stall and do your business, whether you're a man or a woman.
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Time for better bathrooms.
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Yeah, this is, like you know, kind of besides the point, but, like the fact that restrooms are segregated at all, I think it's really a problem which comes from, like urinals and the fact that, like men just have their penises out and like that can be a really uncomfortable and weird and, you know, rapey situation for women.
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You know, if a guy's like gesturing at his penis and she's like walking by the urinal, gross, understandable.
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Like women don't want to see that and, frankly, like some guys are shy and they don't want women to be walking by, that makes sense to me.
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Um, I think, though, what we have here is that, like I think you you do have a lot of like genuine transphobia, where, like it doesn't make sense to like care really that much about the presentation gender-wise of the person in the stall next to you.
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I think people fundamentally, at the end of the day, need to get over that, and we can't like hodl these behaviors and tell women that, like you should be really worried about, like whether or not someone in the stall next to you has, like some facial hair right said.
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That said, like you're saying, trans community used to be a lot smaller.
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It used to be a lot easier to enforce these informal rules and the stakes used to be a lot higher.
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Trans women knew that they didn't have this big social apparatus behind them to defend them, so they really needed to present a certain way to avoid trouble.
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That makes sense.
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We don't live in that world anymore and now the expectation from people is they can really cross a lot of boundaries, they can make other people uncomfortable and it's up to other people to like affirm their gender at.
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At the end of the day, I think that's really toxic and I do think to some extent, it makes sense to maybe have the government step in when people can't socially regulate themselves, and so maybe that means, like you know, if you go into women's restrooms or women's locker rooms.
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You have to have some sort of indicator to prove that you're not going to act like a psycho.
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Pull out your penis, you know.
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Whatever they're going to have some discretion.
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I think that's really okay, especially for those environments where, like people are engaging with each other in a nude way, there's no way to get around that.
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Sol is maybe a different story.
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Maybe there's room to work out there, but, like you're saying, with the lockdown, you know there are these instances that come up that do really matter and you know, maybe it's f marker, maybe it's prove you're on hormones for three years.
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Just something right, yeah, yeah, this is oh sorry, yeah, well, just really quickly to reply to that taff.
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I mean I don't like me.
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This is just old-fashioned or conservative of me.
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But like this nancy mace thing happened this week in hand to god.
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I was in a meeting and I was out in public at the time and I just like I'm sure y'all have had this happen to you I just needed to go cry.
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I was so emotional and I went to the ladies and I just sat there for 15 minutes crying and then I redid my makeup and walked back out and did the rest of the event.
00:20:01.582 --> 00:20:12.303
Or you know, I don't know if y'all do high profile, like really nice events at really nice venues, but like the ladies room there has like a couch that you will go sit on, socialize that's actually.
00:20:12.303 --> 00:20:16.922
I've had important conversations and meetings in there for networking.
00:20:16.922 --> 00:20:20.070
So I I don't like me.
00:20:20.070 --> 00:20:22.919
It's just like this is my conservative upbringing.
00:20:22.919 --> 00:20:33.951
I don't like this idea of like abolishing these gendered spaces, because I do think there's a culture in the ladies room of like, you know, doing your makeup or having a casual conversation.
00:20:33.951 --> 00:20:35.214
That is cool.
00:20:35.214 --> 00:20:37.361
I think that's a space women should have.
00:20:37.882 --> 00:20:38.845
Well, I think that's fine.
00:20:38.845 --> 00:20:48.429
I just don't think it needs to be enforced by law and I don't think trans women, you know, are a big enough problem that we necessarily need to get the state involved in this.
00:20:48.429 --> 00:20:54.448
I think it's okay if, like occasionally, sometimes in the ladies restroom, some trans woman comes in.
00:20:54.448 --> 00:21:04.865
That doesn't pass, sure, I think it's okay, and I don't think it destroys the concept of women's restrooms or the ability for women to kind of just, you know, be women and feel free in there, and that's okay.
00:21:04.865 --> 00:21:11.075
So, yeah, I think it's about like scaling the policy to the level of problem.
00:21:11.075 --> 00:21:16.211
I don't think that there's like a demonstration of this, like you know, epic issue, I agree.
00:21:16.961 --> 00:21:26.915
This has been really tough like for me to parse out, because I feel like I see both sides of it and it's like I don't think you can police people based on their like.
00:21:26.915 --> 00:21:28.938
You know, you don't know people's biological sex.
00:21:28.938 --> 00:21:34.373
This is just a reality that a lot of the gender criticals will pretend doesn't exist.
00:21:34.373 --> 00:21:45.900
But on the flip side, I see I don't know, just unhinged videos of I wouldn't call them trans activists, but I guess trans women or non-binary, I'm not sure.
00:21:45.900 --> 00:21:59.604
But this insistent, this entitlement of nancy mace, I'm gonna attack you physically, I'm gonna beat you up and I'm gonna use women's spaces and I'm like, oh my god, I'm not, I'm not gonna defend that, like that is obscene behavior to me.
00:21:59.604 --> 00:22:09.827
And it's like I don't want my viewpoint of the right for some trans women to use the women's base to be taken and used, weaponized for people like that.
00:22:09.827 --> 00:22:13.203
And it's like I don't know how to balance it.
00:22:13.203 --> 00:22:14.528
So I'm like, how do we?
00:22:14.528 --> 00:22:16.055
You know what's the striking?
00:22:16.055 --> 00:22:17.461
Where's the middle ground here?
00:22:17.480 --> 00:22:19.525
It's a good question.
00:22:19.525 --> 00:22:21.028
I do also want to ask Kelly.
00:22:22.010 --> 00:22:45.614
Yeah, I said a while ago I said this like a year ago that people after they're on hrt for a certain amount of time, or when they get their license changed, if they're trans, they have like a certain marker on it that says that they're like I don't know, officially trans or transitioned enough to be able to use like spaces, like the women's bathroom and then what everyone say they compared to the holocaust and like star or something to like mark them I don't even know it's like as jews, I think.
00:22:45.614 --> 00:22:47.865
I don't know.
00:22:47.904 --> 00:22:54.904
I just maybe a little hyperbolic maybe a little, a little, yeah I miss when people would just go to the bathroom.
00:22:54.924 --> 00:22:55.628
That made sense.
00:22:55.628 --> 00:23:06.868
But I feel like non-binary people kind of ruin that for us, and also just trans women that want to just walk in when they don't pass at all, or predatory men that want to take advantage of how woke and accepting the whole community has become.
00:23:06.868 --> 00:23:08.913
It's just, yeah, I don't know.
00:23:08.913 --> 00:23:26.153
I want to sit up here and be like, oh yeah, like I, I totally get where, like, biological women are coming from, but it's like, at the end of the day, like I, regardless of, like, what laws get passed, like I mean, take me to freaking prison, but like I don't care if they pass a law in my state that says trans women can't use the women's bathroom, I am not using the men's room, yeah, same.
00:23:26.220 --> 00:24:01.185
Like that puts my safety at risk so much more than it would have me using the women's, you know, so it's I don't know this is why I find so frustrating is like y'all have had experiences with guys that get really scary when they find out you're trans, right, like I mean like Actually, when they find out you're trans, right, like, like I mean I've like actually now, well, like when I was like I've never had it happen to me in person, but like when I was dating, the way I would do is, you know, before dating them, so you'd meet guys and then you would tell them right, yeah, I would always do it by text or whatever.
00:24:01.887 --> 00:24:07.962
And you know some of them would get really, really, really yelly and aggressive in a really scary way.
00:24:07.962 --> 00:24:36.592
So, like I I do think if you're forcing trans women to use the men's room like I'm sorry, there's some guys that are gonna get really weird about that that will put us in danger but they don't care if we're in danger, because it's not about protecting trans women, it's about protecting biological women and that's all, I agree, because they perceive what we did as a cosmetic choice and there's no changing their opinion on that, so they're like oh well, these are the consequences of your actions well, I want to be clear.
00:24:36.692 --> 00:24:38.582
I think most people don't feel that way.
00:24:38.582 --> 00:24:48.813
I actually think most people, if you get down to it, they're like it's not that surprising that there are some men that act like women and look like women and are just more comfortable that way.
00:24:48.813 --> 00:24:52.009
I don't think that is something that's hard for most people to understand.
00:24:52.009 --> 00:24:58.951
I think these hardcore gender criticals their brains are just cooked and you can't talk to them about this.
00:24:59.814 --> 00:25:06.570
It's tough, and when you're on social media especially depending on how your For you page is is set up it's easy to feel like they're the majority.
00:25:06.872 --> 00:25:47.063
they're not, you know they're not it's tough, you know, because I feel like I, I see where they're coming from and, to be honest, like out of this whole ordeal, I've made a priority of using a third space, if there's one available, just out of respect for the struggle, and I understand that, like I'm not the type of person who's gonna virtue signal and post that shit online, like I don't believe in that, but I do see where they're coming from and it's like, but at the end of the day, it's like it feels like it's making an issue out of something that doesn't really exist, like I, because, in other words, like I'll go to the women's restroom and it's zero, no one cares, it's completely a mute issue.
00:25:47.063 --> 00:26:07.534
But I understand that I don't want to send that signal, that that's an expectation for every person who identifies as trans, because there's so many that don't do anything or have beards, and it's like I don't want that expectation to be like oh, because I claim the gender identity of female, I get, I'm entitled to access in this space.
00:26:07.913 --> 00:26:09.815
It's the entitlement that's the problem.
00:26:09.815 --> 00:26:11.976
Is that not a real rest?
00:26:12.096 --> 00:26:46.625
then, though, to have to use a family restroom or like a gender neutral one, because I know, when I go to like the theater, pretty often there's like a men and a women's bathroom, and then there's the family bathroom, and like, maybe within the past like six months, I felt like this pressure to almost use that family restroom just because of how many people on twitter like tell me I'm like invading women's spaces just by existing and using the women's bathroom, but I almost feel like, period of time, felt scared to even enter the woman's bathroom, and I felt like I was forced to to go to this special space and I don't know, I just I hate that Like I have to feel that way.
00:26:46.625 --> 00:26:47.963
Does it not bother you at all?
00:26:49.288 --> 00:26:49.869
Bothers me.
00:26:51.040 --> 00:27:18.385
I mean, you know, in an ideal world, I wish it wasn't a deal, I wish it wasn't an issue, but the fact is is that there's so many bad actors or, like you know, I don't want to say predatory identified males, but like that's sort of predatory trans identified males, and I'm going to say that because they're literally like men, they look like men and they're going in the women's restroom and causing problems, and that's what nancy, nancy mace is weaponizing for her.
00:27:18.385 --> 00:27:44.348
You know political points and her whole grift, and it's like, and she targeted sarah mcbride which honestly, if you ask me, doesn't have good optics, especially with the way sarah mcbride responded, which go good for her, because she was backed into a corner and like she totally nailed it, I think, by redirecting the focus on what she was actually elected for, which, to you know, instill better policies and implement solutions, not I thought she handled it fairly well.
00:27:44.368 --> 00:27:55.851
I agree I don't know much about her, but I also think that, like she's a great avatar for the trans community because she passes really well, so, yeah, easy to rally behind what they want.
00:27:55.871 --> 00:27:57.721
Yes, I was like this is the reference.
00:27:57.721 --> 00:27:59.266
I'm so glad for her being in there.
00:27:59.266 --> 00:28:07.583
But then I see like the other side of it, like zoe zephyr, who's like I'm the same as a biological woman oh my god, just kill me.
00:28:08.263 --> 00:28:13.712
I mean, you know, I, I, I don't think about this when I use the bathroom.
00:28:13.712 --> 00:28:26.227
Like you know, kelly, you said something at tiktok a while back that really, really resonated with me, which is like you can't even remember what it's like to be a man, because it's been so long, or having those parts, which is 100 how I feel.
00:28:26.227 --> 00:28:31.844
And you know, frankly, if I got arrested for being in a bathroom would be a national story, right.
00:28:31.844 --> 00:28:38.663
So, um, you know, like it's, it's, I'm gonna go about my life, I'm gonna do my thing.
00:28:38.663 --> 00:28:41.875
I'm not hurting anyone, I'm not trying to make a political statement.
00:28:41.875 --> 00:28:48.012
I transitioned to blend in and to not make a big deal out of being trans, and that's what I'm going to continue doing.
00:28:49.201 --> 00:29:02.655
So you know, I think that what I find so frustrating about this project by the gender criticals is it is so many echoes of the segregationist South that I grew up with.
00:29:02.655 --> 00:29:08.900
Mississippi is a state that's still torn apart from that struggle in the 1960s.
00:29:08.900 --> 00:29:10.507
It did not end well for us.
00:29:10.507 --> 00:29:13.429
So you know, it's like the sports issue.
00:29:13.429 --> 00:29:17.852
You know, I understand that for someone like me.
00:29:17.852 --> 00:29:21.790
I underwent male puberty and like it volleyball.
00:29:21.790 --> 00:29:25.670
I just have an advantage and do not need to be playing.
00:29:25.670 --> 00:29:26.352
That that's fair.
00:29:26.352 --> 00:29:28.384
I have no issue with that whatsoever.
00:29:28.384 --> 00:29:44.105
But for something like pinball, you've got to give trans women a space to integrate as women and participate socially, or that's just flat out bigotry, right?
00:29:44.105 --> 00:29:45.166
So I like.
00:29:45.166 --> 00:29:50.431
If you're talking about compromises where everyone gets what they want, I'm on board with you.
00:29:50.431 --> 00:30:00.260
But if you're trying to expel trans women from every single space where there's not really a valid public policy concern, it just comes across as bigotry to me.
00:30:00.260 --> 00:30:02.830
Well, it brings up the point of why they separate things like chess too right, like with male and females.
00:30:02.851 --> 00:30:11.645
Because they separate things like chess too right, like with male and females, because they say that, like men are just better at chess mentally, so I don't know if they would say the same thing about pinball.
00:30:11.726 --> 00:30:24.528
It's just like they're like you have a male brain technically, so you'd be better at this than biological women it is because men like in these spaces, like they just dominate and it's cool to have a space to hang out with other women.
00:30:24.528 --> 00:30:26.330
That's literally it right.
00:30:26.330 --> 00:30:40.827
Um, you know chess it's I I don't play chess professionally, but I would expect it's just a place to hang with people that are like you and and the truth is like I have a lot more in common with most women than I do most guys like.
00:30:40.827 --> 00:30:41.690
That's just true.
00:30:41.690 --> 00:30:52.053
So I I just think, like this project to expel us from all spaces, it's just it is it's just cruel it just makes me think of the queen's gambit.
00:30:52.693 --> 00:30:54.681
Yeah, did y'all see that?
00:30:54.961 --> 00:31:02.119
again I didn't, I didn't uh well, I'm familiar with the premise yeah, okay, yeah, I mean it's just that's.
00:31:02.140 --> 00:31:22.347
What makes the movie noteworthy, though, is that this biological female is beating these males at chess and it's like this I guess game you know that really, you know leans into structural patterns of thinking of, like what the chess pieces can do, and it's like I mean, the question is, is how far reaching are biological effects really?
00:31:24.431 --> 00:31:26.454
Yeah, it's a great question.
00:31:26.454 --> 00:31:31.781
I mean in the sports arena in particular, history of segregation in sports.
00:31:31.781 --> 00:32:08.394
It's really fascinating because early on, when sports were becoming desegregated, there was an incentive among the white players to avoid letting in black players because there's less competition, right, and a huge reason why sports eventually became racially desegregated was because teams realized that if they let in black players, they could have these amazing players but really contributing to the team and making the sport much more interesting to play.
00:32:08.394 --> 00:32:14.316
And for baseball, prior to letting in the black players, black players would have their own games.
00:32:14.316 --> 00:32:20.077
They would go around their own state or their own country or United States and they would play.
00:32:20.077 --> 00:32:29.612
They attracted huge crowds but they weren't fully integrated and it was only when the sports teams realized that they could actually make a lot of money they started bringing in these Black players.
00:32:30.320 --> 00:32:42.061
But it was the white players themselves who didn't want to invite those Black players in because it was competition and they exerted a lot of power on the sports teams, acting kind of like a cartel.
00:32:42.703 --> 00:33:06.323
So you know, there's potential that, like in chess, people benefit in some way from it being less competitive, from having fewer women involved in it, having them in their own world, regardless of, you know, whether or not there's like a biological advantage certainly not the case that, like chess players, are posing a physical harm to the women they're playing with and at the end of the day, that's what it is.
00:33:06.323 --> 00:33:17.112
For me, when it comes to the restrooms thing, like, is there evidence of a physical danger posed by trans women to cis women when we are using an integrated bathroom?
00:33:17.112 --> 00:33:38.608
I don't think there is, or at the very least, I think that this kind of vulgar policy that involves these bathroom bills is not a good solution to reduce the relatively minor amount of sexual assault and, you know, bad behavior that is occurring in bathrooms from trans women to cis women.
00:33:38.608 --> 00:33:45.189
I just think it's ridiculous and the only motivation that makes sense for these sorts of bills is just blatant.
00:33:45.189 --> 00:33:49.165
You know transphobia, so you know, call me a lib, but that's.
00:33:51.262 --> 00:33:55.728
Fine lib, I think, to play devil's advocate for just a minute.
00:33:55.728 --> 00:33:58.333
Would the three of you not agree with me?
00:33:58.333 --> 00:34:18.409
The trans community has completely failed to police our bad actors Like we have just sat here silently as is expanded and expanded, and expanded and you don't need gender dysphoria to be trans, and any kind of medical safeguarding is oppression.
00:34:18.409 --> 00:34:37.547
And it's really unsurprising to me why the trans movement largely because people like me just stayed silent and didn't make a big deal out of being trans like has has grown to this place where you do have people with beards going into bathrooms and filming videos about it.
00:34:37.547 --> 00:34:41.927
Now I mean, don't you think like we are somewhat responsible for this mess we're in?
00:34:44.333 --> 00:34:45.463
Yes, I do.
00:34:45.483 --> 00:34:46.429
But I also, but also.
00:34:46.429 --> 00:34:48.179
But I mean that's the short answer.
00:34:48.179 --> 00:35:00.164
But I think, like the strategy has always been like either one of two things to pretend it didn't exist or didn't happen and just flat out ignore it, or to try to go oh, they're not actually trans, they're, they're not trans.
00:35:00.164 --> 00:35:11.173
We decide who's trans now, because you know, we, just you know, we can't cope with the fact that someone that I don't commits rape in a women's prison is, you know, someone who's also trans.
00:35:11.173 --> 00:35:12.867
Like it's like no, that can't be the case.
00:35:12.867 --> 00:35:21.585
And it's like I mean, yeah, there's some issues of policing it, but I mean there's so, it's so sporadic.
00:35:21.585 --> 00:35:34.648
I mean there's all these places where there's, there's all these different people that you know it's happening and it's like, okay, so the the beards and the trans woman thing, I think, are you thinking of that Tik TOK that like kind of went viral?
00:35:34.648 --> 00:35:35.340
Where it was that?
00:35:35.340 --> 00:35:37.867
Basically that guy who had a beer but he had boobs.
00:35:38.309 --> 00:35:50.956
That's, that's one of them but it's not that specifically I've seen this over and over and over.
00:35:50.996 --> 00:35:51.579
Yeah, the gender queering.
00:35:51.579 --> 00:35:54.219
There's an entitlement that if you just say you're a woman, you belong in that space.
00:35:54.219 --> 00:36:00.628
Now and this is part of this bigger project that I suspect y'all agree with me it's like there's a.
00:36:00.628 --> 00:36:20.943
The willingness to get along with people has been replaced in the trans community by a thrill from daring people to disagree, and then, if they disagree, it gets moralized instantly like the Lily Tino video right, calling her sir.
00:36:20.943 --> 00:36:24.487
Right, how dare you, how dare you not understand this?
00:36:24.487 --> 00:36:28.184
Calling her sir right, how dare you, how dare you not understand this?
00:36:28.184 --> 00:36:31.092
Like there is a, a thrill from getting like seeing if people are going to dare to call you on it.
00:36:31.092 --> 00:36:33.643
That is just so unhelpful in my view.
00:36:34.164 --> 00:36:36.231
Yeah, I've definitely seen that behavior.
00:36:36.231 --> 00:36:41.746
You know, people sort of realize the power that they have other over others and they're willing to exploit it.
00:36:42.407 --> 00:36:45.742
Yeah, definitely you know it's just like the definition of just.
00:36:45.742 --> 00:36:47.208
You know she was going to those.
00:36:47.208 --> 00:36:48.271
I hate even saying she.
00:36:48.271 --> 00:36:53.900
They were going to those restaurants looking for people to misgender them, so they could make those videos and make their money.
00:36:54.322 --> 00:36:57.396
I doubt they're even trans and like I hate to be like, oh, it's just a vibe.
00:36:57.396 --> 00:37:05.175
It is just a vibe, though like I can just tell that this is just a fetish, a fetish for him or her, whatever for that person and it.
00:37:05.175 --> 00:37:07.842
I don't believe they're actually trans and I hate that.
00:37:07.842 --> 00:37:42.188
Like there's no I I wish we just had like a test, like a blood test or something that could just like confirm if someone was trans or not, because then it would just end so much of this bullshit and I just pray that like one day we get to a place where that is possible, but I don't know if it will ever get there well, I think that's the thing, kelly is that like we don't have the test and some trans people are just gonna be assholes or they're going to be predators, right, and they're going to engage in bad behavior, or they're going to be totally innocent, but they're just not going to pass.
00:37:42.688 --> 00:37:55.726
You know sufficiently everyone's standards and I think everyone realizes, um, that when we start implementing standards like you have to pass a certain level that suddenly becomes very arbitrary.
00:37:55.726 --> 00:38:01.304
It's very easy to fall on the wrong side of that, and I think every trans one recognizes that.
00:38:01.304 --> 00:38:04.708
Like on a bad day maybe, maybe they fall on the wrong side of that.
00:38:04.708 --> 00:38:08.175
Like I certainly feel that way, and that's that's scary, right.
00:38:08.175 --> 00:38:20.782
And so I think that's why the trans community tends to sort of you know form rank on these things and say like we can't use this standard because it can end up hurting people it's not intended to.
00:38:21.284 --> 00:38:43.788
In regard to the question about predators, and you know to what degree is it our responsibility to police behavior I think that, like any community, we just need to acknowledge that, like we can't police every trans person's behavior and sometimes there's going to be bad actors, but that doesn't necessarily need to indict us.
00:38:43.788 --> 00:38:48.806
We can say, yeah, this person was acting, you know, rapey, in a public restroom.
00:38:48.806 --> 00:38:52.333
That's not a trans thing, that's a weirdo person thing.
00:38:52.333 --> 00:38:55.307
And there's weirdo people in every community there's weirdo.
00:38:55.307 --> 00:39:03.032
There's people who are in the gay community, who are pedophiles right, I don't think that that's an indictment on normal gay men.
00:39:03.032 --> 00:39:04.824
It's just not right.
00:39:04.824 --> 00:39:10.429
And it's okay for gay men to say that Like acknowledge, yes, this exists, it's not me.
00:39:11.601 --> 00:39:14.931
I mean I nearly got raped by a gay man when I was a child.
00:39:14.931 --> 00:39:17.288
That really sent me off course for a really long time.
00:39:17.288 --> 00:39:20.389
But that's I mean I know that's not all gay men.
00:39:20.389 --> 00:39:26.155
So I would love to if I could just move the conversation along.
00:39:26.155 --> 00:39:30.826
I would love to have some cheery fun topic today.
00:39:31.025 --> 00:39:49.005
So I wanted to change the topic to something I've wanted to ask you for a long time, taft, which is I want to hear about everyone's hair routine, because I think you have gorgeous hair and, kelly, I think when you take a round brush, I assume to it you have amazing hair sky.
00:39:49.005 --> 00:39:51.251
Your hair always looks on point.
00:39:51.251 --> 00:39:55.284
So I want to hear what everyone does with their hair routine.
00:39:56.807 --> 00:40:02.961
It's a great question yes, okay, I went to the dermatologist recently.
00:40:02.961 --> 00:40:08.628
Um, I have this like redness around my nose and I walk in and I'm waiting for her.
00:40:08.628 --> 00:40:10.708
She finally comes in through, looks at me.
00:40:10.708 --> 00:40:13.869
The first thing she says is how often do you shower?
00:40:13.869 --> 00:40:15.565
And I was like what?
00:40:15.565 --> 00:40:19.128
And she's like, yeah, your hair is like incredibly greasy.
00:40:19.128 --> 00:40:24.206
Oh no, all the dandruff in your scalp, it's snowing in this.
00:40:24.206 --> 00:40:35.063
Oh man, we'll edit this out, just so you know.
00:40:35.063 --> 00:40:35.405
Yeah, absolutely.
00:40:35.405 --> 00:40:36.266
Um, people deserve to know.
00:40:36.266 --> 00:40:37.751
The public, american people, are interested in taft's dandruff.
00:40:37.751 --> 00:40:40.543
I have always had like incredibly thin hair.
00:40:40.543 --> 00:40:45.170
My dad was 18 and my mother oh god, love her.
00:40:45.170 --> 00:40:47.963
Hopefully she doesn't, like you know, feel like I'm airing her dirty laundry.
00:40:47.963 --> 00:40:49.606
She has also very thin hair.
00:40:49.606 --> 00:40:50.929
It like doesn't really grow past.
00:40:50.929 --> 00:40:53.125
Um, her like chin maybe.
00:40:53.125 --> 00:40:55.313
It, like you know, lightly grazes her shoulders.
00:40:55.313 --> 00:41:05.371
I don't have great genetics for this um, so it's um, it's an uphill battle for any products for me.
00:41:05.371 --> 00:41:07.494
Yeah, uh, really bad.
00:41:07.534 --> 00:41:15.744
I think it's like the way you style it just really works with your face shape and it always looks really pretty, I think I've never noticed that your hair looks thin at all.
00:41:15.804 --> 00:41:17.809
Yeah, that's good, yeah, it's um.
00:41:17.809 --> 00:41:21.001
I mean it's like fairly.
00:41:21.001 --> 00:41:29.630
You know, I don't know't have any bald patches or whatever, but it is just thin hair and I've definitely developed strategies.
00:41:29.630 --> 00:41:38.335
So if there's other people, other trans women who also have thin hair and want tips, I have lots of them.
00:41:39.202 --> 00:41:40.085
What's your top tip?
00:41:40.085 --> 00:41:41.282
What's your top one?
00:41:42.527 --> 00:41:43.851
Okay, so many things.
00:41:43.851 --> 00:41:46.889
First of all, I've experimented a lot with extensions.
00:41:46.889 --> 00:41:51.429
Extensions are incredible, especially the weave-in extensions.
00:41:52.391 --> 00:41:56.264
If I was wealthier, can you walk me through this actually, because I've heard about extensions.
00:41:56.264 --> 00:41:57.128
I've never done this.
00:41:57.128 --> 00:41:59.065
Tell me what it is top to bottom.
00:41:59.065 --> 00:41:59.788
Yeah, okay, yeah.
00:42:00.900 --> 00:42:04.751
So they just get hair usually from Asian women and they dye it blonde.
00:42:04.751 --> 00:42:10.518
Yeah, okay, yeah, so they.
00:42:10.518 --> 00:42:11.536
They just get hair usually from like asian women and they like dye it blonde.
00:42:11.536 --> 00:42:11.869
Yeah, this is the reality.
00:42:11.869 --> 00:42:15.490
Asian women have like gorgeous, naturally long hair and lots of them are willing to sell it, uh, so they get that and they can like weave it in um to your hair.
00:42:15.490 --> 00:42:35.699
One way to do that is they get these little like brass or copper clamps, um, and they usually have like a silicone lining, so they just like wrap strands of hair in the clamps and then you can sew in the hair you buy to those clamps and it looks like fully natural, it's right there, like hair.
00:42:35.699 --> 00:42:36.905
It lies smooth on your head.
00:42:37.300 --> 00:42:42.552
So if you rub your hand through it like this, do you hit the clamp Like can you do that all the way through it?
00:42:42.954 --> 00:42:44.726
Yeah, yeah, you can do that easily.
00:42:44.726 --> 00:42:57.644
It's just like because it's at the very base of your scalp and I guess okay yeah, yeah, if you watch it like normal hair you can wash it like normal hair.
00:42:58.065 --> 00:42:59.829
You can style it like normal hair.
00:42:59.829 --> 00:43:06.628
Now I will say it's easier if you have thicker hair, a little bit right right, like so, because I have thinner hair.
00:43:06.628 --> 00:43:13.423
I think if I were to style it in certain ways you might see the weft, if you know what to look for.
00:43:13.423 --> 00:43:18.353
Frankly, you know I had extensions for so long and they were never an issue.
00:43:18.353 --> 00:43:20.086
They feel totally natural.
00:43:20.086 --> 00:43:21.244
You wash them like normal.
00:43:21.244 --> 00:43:27.226
They just become part of your hair, because all the hair on anyone's head is dead already.
00:43:27.226 --> 00:43:34.768
There's like not really a difference between it and your hair, except for the fact that it's not growing so how long is it?
00:43:34.807 --> 00:43:35.650
yeah, I get for.
00:43:35.650 --> 00:43:38.300
Do you have to get redone, or yeah?
00:43:39.143 --> 00:43:46.914
yes, so usually you get the extensions for like a year, maybe two years, if you like take really good care of it.
00:43:46.914 --> 00:43:49.007
Again, these are like nice extensions.
00:43:49.007 --> 00:44:09.266
You can get cheaper extensions that just like clip in kind of more like wig quality, but if you want like good extensions they'll last like a year or two and usually you get them moved up every six to eight weeks so your hair grows and you'll get like an inch or so of like your natural hair growing out and so it'll move down.
00:44:09.266 --> 00:44:11.351
That can like look slightly bad.
00:44:11.351 --> 00:44:16.554
It can get like tangled, so they just like they go in and I've had this done multiple ways.
00:44:16.554 --> 00:44:19.202
Sometimes with the clamps they can just push them up.
00:44:19.202 --> 00:44:24.164
It takes like 15 minutes and you're like done, you go in the next, you know couple months.
00:44:24.164 --> 00:44:25.920
Sometimes they take them all out.
00:44:25.920 --> 00:44:31.931
I will say tapings this is totally like taft autism, extension hour.
00:44:31.931 --> 00:44:34.702
Um, tapings like really messed up my hair.
00:44:34.702 --> 00:44:38.967
So I recommend the weave um the tie-in.
00:44:39.166 --> 00:44:45.335
But yeah, if I was, if I was, richer, I would have extensions in forever.
00:44:45.335 --> 00:44:48.141
Really, yes, okay.
00:44:48.141 --> 00:44:49.806
So gender affirming care.
00:44:49.806 --> 00:45:13.795
I have lots of criticism, but when I put in extensions I look into the mirror every morning, I feel beautiful and I feel good about myself and I'm just in a more positive mood and I feel like I don't need to wear makeup because, you know, I just have this like part of me that just like I feel really proud of and feel really nice about.
00:45:13.795 --> 00:45:23.971
Yeah, yeah, it's like I like have justified it to myself in that way, where it's like is a form of kind of like gender affirming care for me.
00:45:23.971 --> 00:45:25.893
That really works.
00:45:25.893 --> 00:45:30.146
Now, unfortunately, um, they are quite expensive.
00:45:30.146 --> 00:45:31.793
If you want them to be nice, how much?
00:45:31.893 --> 00:45:34.501
how much thousand dollars appointments too?
00:45:34.543 --> 00:45:47.914
I'm sure it costs a lot yeah, oh, I think the place that I was going to last it was like four hundred dollars every two months, that's nothing, that's fine okay, I don't know.
00:45:47.954 --> 00:46:09.447
I'd say nothing, okay, that's doable, that's doable, yeah, well, again because I want like more volume here, because I think like it's not that like I have very, very thick hair, but when I can attack a round brush and get like a lot of volume here, that's what I think you've got, that, like you know, sixties gorgeous hair.
00:46:09.447 --> 00:46:11.646
I think the problem is too flat.
00:46:11.666 --> 00:46:15.300
Yeah, yeah, I mean, what do you guys want your hair to look like Like?
00:46:15.300 --> 00:46:20.164
This is sort of undergirding the whole discussion, cause I like lots of volume, I do too.
00:46:20.585 --> 00:46:21.487
Oh no, I do too.
00:46:21.487 --> 00:46:22.650
Oh no, I do too.
00:46:22.650 --> 00:46:24.413
Yeah, really, because yours is so straight.
00:46:24.413 --> 00:46:38.182
No, I know Well, that's because that's just easy.
00:46:38.182 --> 00:46:39.744
That's like low maintenance.
00:46:39.744 --> 00:46:40.985
It's just like have it colored and straight.
00:46:41.005 --> 00:46:43.989
That's my thing is like I like to get a balayage every like, at least once a year, maybe twice.
00:46:43.989 --> 00:46:50.266
But with balayage they'll just paint the color onto your hair, so it's like a little bit more natural looking.
00:46:50.266 --> 00:46:51.365
It grows out better.
00:46:51.365 --> 00:46:52.813
That's why you see it like.
00:46:53.155 --> 00:46:59.474
If you look at mine, it's like kind of darker up towards the top but then it gets lighter and it's just because it's easier to grow into.
00:46:59.474 --> 00:47:09.320
And it's like it's just easier to not have to worry about upkeep, whereas, like highlights, you would notice it very stark when it starts growing out, where it like starts and stops from the root.
00:47:09.320 --> 00:47:26.516
So, like I'm low maintenance when it comes to volume because, honestly, like to do, to get the volume you would need to use a lot of hairspray and probably a lot of curling, um, a lot of product, like all of those things, and it's just like I don't know.
00:47:26.516 --> 00:47:29.903
I want to put like minimal effort into my hair routine.
00:47:29.903 --> 00:47:45.606
Um, so I usually just like yeah, I do like the basics to wash it, put in some like conditioner, and then I'll like straighten it a little bit um is because I never had to like feel like I was styling it for it to look good.
00:47:45.967 --> 00:47:50.643
I just like wake up and I was like this looks amazing, right, exactly.
00:47:50.643 --> 00:47:57.483
I'm also like I was paying to like never have to style effectively what about you.
00:47:57.525 --> 00:47:58.967
You, kelly, what do you do?
00:47:59.347 --> 00:48:08.119
Yeah, I spent a decade growing out my hair, so I don't really tend to use hot tools on it so much I didn't for the longest time.
00:48:08.119 --> 00:48:09.302
Oh, I hate hot tools.
00:48:09.302 --> 00:48:11.498
Yeah, I just do.
00:48:11.498 --> 00:48:14.360
I use Tresemme, even though everyone says not to use that.
00:48:14.360 --> 00:48:24.121
I use the moisturizing shampoo and conditioner, but then my secret is I always finish with like, uh, the purple hask packet which is like it's like a moisturizing mask for your hair.
00:48:24.121 --> 00:48:34.420
I've been using it for years and I, just after I condition, every time I wash my hair, I leave it in there for like 10 minutes and I'll like shave my legs and it just makes my hair come out so soft and I do this like every other day.
00:48:34.420 --> 00:48:43.108
Um, and then recently I used to just let it air dry for like years, but then the past like year and a half, I got the Dyson air straight.
00:48:43.349 --> 00:48:44.132
I love it.
00:48:44.132 --> 00:48:45.556
I love it the air wrap.
00:48:45.556 --> 00:48:48.007
This is the greatest invention ever created.
00:48:48.469 --> 00:48:52.047
I bought the air wrap because I convinced myself I was going to teach myself how to curl my hair.
00:48:52.047 --> 00:48:53.896
And I literally just bought it and I haven't touched it once.
00:48:54.016 --> 00:48:57.559
Oh girl, I will blow up your phone with tips for it.
00:48:57.559 --> 00:48:59.782
It's the greatest thing ever made, so.
00:49:00.483 --> 00:49:03.487
I don't know how to curl okay.
00:49:03.507 --> 00:49:04.548
what makes it so okay?
00:49:04.548 --> 00:49:17.704
So with my hair I have, like I don't know when y'all get in the shower, do you just like blow dry it and go, because if I do that mine just ends up like this frizzy, stringy, messy thing.
00:49:17.704 --> 00:49:33.864
So like I have to wash my hair every like strategically every two or three days, because it does take me then like 30 or 40 minutes to get it looking professional enough to like do meetings and stuff like that.
00:49:33.864 --> 00:49:42.644
So the thing that the dyson air ramp I love is the air straightener is great to just like get it straight so you can then put product in it in a way.
00:49:43.085 --> 00:50:09.041
But the Dyson air wrap is such a brilliant point to to like start to understand how to style your hair, because it's so hard to like get a round brush and like get volume with your roots, and the Dyson air ramp will give you a decent result, even like with no scale whatsoever, like it's just like let's suck it up like hot and then cold blast it and you can get great results from that.
00:50:09.041 --> 00:50:15.427
That's literally what I did with mine today, cause I haven't washed it in five days and I needed to look good before the show.
00:50:15.427 --> 00:50:18.061
So it is just, is a miracle tool.
00:50:18.061 --> 00:50:22.704
If you are a professional woman, you should 100% have a Dyson Airwrap.
00:50:22.704 --> 00:50:23.940
It is just brilliant.
00:50:24.516 --> 00:50:25.820
And it's less damaging too.
00:50:25.820 --> 00:50:28.867
It is Because it's not using like hot, hot heat, never.
00:50:28.867 --> 00:50:29.980
It's not like a metal.
00:50:30.335 --> 00:50:32.295
Yeah, never use a heating iron.
00:50:32.295 --> 00:50:35.005
I literally threw mine away after that.
00:50:35.005 --> 00:50:36.617
Yeah, does the ball.
00:50:36.637 --> 00:50:37.820
Just have curls.
00:50:38.041 --> 00:50:43.045
That's like the advantage yeah, it's so there are a bunch of different attachments for it.
00:50:43.045 --> 00:50:45.778
Like there's a round, round brush attachment.
00:50:45.778 --> 00:50:53.947
So if you're trying to like lift up your roots, you can put like volumizing mousse there and then use the round brush and then get a lot of volume that way.
00:50:53.947 --> 00:51:02.344
There's another attachment that like it's this coriander effect, so we'll like suck it up there and hold it there and then you'll get a curl from it.
00:51:02.344 --> 00:51:05.842
So if you see this like gentle curl that's falling.
00:51:05.842 --> 00:51:07.847
That's just literally from five minutes.
00:51:07.889 --> 00:51:19.706
With the Dyson, if you're like doing a television hit, it's got a flyaway attachment so you can like use smoothing spray on it and it will go through and like blow all your loose ends straight.
00:51:19.706 --> 00:51:22.302
And there's a blow dryer attachment too.
00:51:22.302 --> 00:51:27.023
So if you're like traveling, you don't want to pack a separate blow dryer.
00:51:27.023 --> 00:51:35.608
As good as the Dyson Supersonic is, I usually don't travel with that because the blow dryer attachment with the Airwrap is really good.
00:51:35.608 --> 00:51:39.356
The trick is to really find product that you like.
00:51:39.356 --> 00:51:41.920
Um, the dyson product is pretty good.
00:51:41.920 --> 00:51:42.621
I like it.
00:51:42.621 --> 00:51:43.864
It's super expensive.
00:51:43.864 --> 00:51:47.918
Uh uh, dry bar their entire series for a blowout.
00:51:47.918 --> 00:51:48.760
That's really good.
00:51:48.760 --> 00:51:56.199
But you can get a lot of like really good stuff with just the chi oil that you can find at any cS if you're really light on it.
00:51:56.199 --> 00:51:58.802
Interesting.
00:51:58.802 --> 00:52:02.565
I'm sorry I'm so kinky about this.
00:52:02.606 --> 00:52:03.226
I love it.
00:52:03.226 --> 00:52:11.277
Yeah, I think the hair science is fascinating, so yeah, what do y'all use?
00:52:11.376 --> 00:52:12.159
for product.
00:52:12.159 --> 00:52:16.527
I just use the Olaplex heat protectant I think it's like number 30 something.
00:52:16.527 --> 00:52:19.237
I just use heat protectant.
00:52:19.237 --> 00:52:20.018
I don't do hairspray or anything.
00:52:20.018 --> 00:52:21.141
Really yeah.
00:52:22.764 --> 00:52:23.346
What about y'all?
00:52:23.967 --> 00:52:30.157
Yeah, now I use um, just head and shoulders, and then um, uh.
00:52:30.157 --> 00:52:34.364
The conditioner is the um, uh.
00:52:34.364 --> 00:52:35.945
It's like, oh God, it's.
00:52:35.945 --> 00:52:40.010
It's slipping me, I don't have the brand, but it's just, it's really great, I love it.
00:52:40.010 --> 00:52:43.864
Um and then um, and then, honestly, that's it.
00:52:43.864 --> 00:52:45.201
Like that's all I use.
00:52:45.735 --> 00:52:47.302
And I'm so lucky Wow.
00:52:48.675 --> 00:53:00.617
I mean, yeah, I have really thin hair, like tough, but I don't have like struggles with like the skin issues that you were describing Um so like, like I don't know.
00:53:00.617 --> 00:53:05.155
But for me, like the problem I always run into is that my hair gets super greasy if I don't wash it like frequently enough.
00:53:05.155 --> 00:53:09.768
So I shower, I mean I wash, I shower every day, but I wash my hair every other day.
00:53:10.054 --> 00:53:15.864
Yeah, um to like keep it like yeah, volume, so um, or else it looks bad.
00:53:15.864 --> 00:53:16.766
So I don't know.
00:53:16.766 --> 00:53:21.338
I'm off to try the um, the Dyson, what was that device called that you were talking about?
00:53:21.358 --> 00:53:22.501
The Dyson era.
00:53:22.501 --> 00:53:24.284
That is amazing, oh my God.
00:53:24.284 --> 00:53:24.824
Okay.
00:53:25.467 --> 00:53:26.809
Oh, I need to check that out.
00:53:26.809 --> 00:53:28.059
It sounds like really great.
00:53:29.018 --> 00:53:30.322
I have two of them, straightener though.
00:53:38.764 --> 00:53:40.025
The air straight is great.
00:53:40.025 --> 00:53:40.806
Be really I.
00:53:40.806 --> 00:53:43.690
I am so suspicious of heating irons.
00:53:43.690 --> 00:53:45.516
I think they're so bad for your hair.
00:53:45.516 --> 00:53:51.454
Um, I do like the the air straight quite a bit okay, air straight, I'll check it out.
00:53:51.514 --> 00:54:00.179
I mean, I've always used just a traditional, like straight heater, um, straight hair heater like where it like clamps down and you just, you know, run over your hair.
00:54:00.601 --> 00:54:22.630
I never do it wet, though, because I know like that is like really damaging, so I always like wait for it to dry and then I'll use it well, that's what's so great about the wraps is you can do it while your hair is like just when you get out of the shower, when it's like kind of halfway dry it's like actually it works better and it's like it makes it so your hair can dry like faster, so you're not like waiting for it to dry before you use the tool, but it's not as hot like that's.
00:54:22.795 --> 00:54:24.860
No, it does not damage it at all.
00:54:25.221 --> 00:54:25.501
It does.
00:54:25.521 --> 00:54:41.099
It's almost like having your hair wet makes it so it works better and it doesn't have to be as hot I mean it should be like halfway dry, so I do like a half dry before I do the air wrap, so it should be like kind of that stage okay, um, but that's like when you're doing it the next day.
00:54:41.099 --> 00:54:47.181
If you can get like a little wet with some product and we'll get through it, that will really work well too.
00:54:47.181 --> 00:55:02.824
The problem I have is like all the product like really way, because my hair is so thick, it's so hard to get volume, so like I have to be so judicious about how much product I use, because it'll just weigh it down and then I'll have no volume through here.
00:55:04.608 --> 00:55:10.782
Yeah, Interesting, I find that there's so many hair myths it's very hard to sort through them.
00:55:10.782 --> 00:55:19.855
Like I don't know if you've heard about like the rosemary oil thing no, what is this Okay about?
00:55:19.855 --> 00:55:20.416
Like the rosemary oil thing?
00:55:20.416 --> 00:55:20.898
No, what is this okay?
00:55:20.898 --> 00:55:26.014
It's like a very common tip that people will give which is like, add rosemary oil to your scalp to like make your hair grow faster and thicker.
00:55:26.014 --> 00:55:32.275
I think really, it's um, it's supposed to extend the window during which your hair is growing.
00:55:32.275 --> 00:55:38.603
Uh, so that, like, more at any given time, there's more hairs on your head because it takes longer for them to fall out.
00:55:39.626 --> 00:55:42.590
But it's based on like, really like shoddy science.
00:55:42.590 --> 00:55:46.320
This paper that like has all these sort of like obvious errors.
00:55:46.320 --> 00:56:19.927
So like there's text that's like duplicated in places that shouldn't be, and um, basically, it seems like there was maybe like a paper mill or something, but it gets repeated all the time, along with like dozens of other things that people will say which, like just you know, don't make sense, right, like, no, the idea that, like, water damages your hair, like not really good evidence for that, and so, and also, hair product companies are like so kind of oh yes, I, um, I went to this like salon.
00:56:19.927 --> 00:56:30.018
The other day they were having a drag show, which is like I don't know another story in of itself, but they're having a drag show, slash party, slash sale for their products.
00:56:30.018 --> 00:56:46.746
I went there and I got some things, but like I really feel like I was going out on a limb, like I was researching active ingredients and like trying to find like real evidence for their effective you know their effectiveness and I just like could find nothing.
00:56:46.746 --> 00:56:56.809
And it's so different from like skincare, where it's like you can get a retinol, you can get like a moisturizer, niacinamide, vitamin C there's like great evidence for these things.
00:56:56.829 --> 00:56:57.833
Hair care it's like evidence for these things.
00:56:57.833 --> 00:56:58.134
Hair care.
00:56:58.134 --> 00:57:03.181
It's like take this plant from like india.
00:57:03.181 --> 00:57:04.364
What do I do with that?
00:57:04.364 --> 00:57:08.730
So, yeah, I just want more hair on my head.
00:57:08.934 --> 00:57:11.059
Okay I'm gonna go get extensions.
00:57:11.059 --> 00:57:13.045
I, I love this idea, do y'all?
00:57:13.045 --> 00:57:15.297
How often do y'all go and get a blowout?
00:57:15.297 --> 00:57:20.010
Because when I do a big tv hit, my favorite thing is going and getting a blowout.
00:57:20.010 --> 00:57:28.242
That's like and you know, I tried to explain this to my husband one time and he's like wait, so you, you pay someone to wash your hair for you.
00:57:28.242 --> 00:57:31.347
And I'm like Frank, it's so much more complicated than that.
00:57:31.347 --> 00:57:33.516
I don't think I've ever done it.
00:57:33.536 --> 00:57:34.219
You've never done it.
00:57:34.219 --> 00:57:37.786
You've never done a blowout Kelly no.
00:57:37.867 --> 00:57:38.909
Oh, you're missing out.
00:57:43.478 --> 00:57:44.599
I'm going to go kidnap you and bring you to.
00:57:44.599 --> 00:57:45.501
Yeah, no, they're really fun.
00:57:45.501 --> 00:57:46.384
What does it look like?
00:57:46.384 --> 00:57:47.987
Like I don't really even know.
00:57:54.934 --> 00:58:03.081
So they basically, well, you go there and they wash your hair and they style it for you and it like really really looks good, like because it's just easier to do it if you're on the outside.
00:58:03.081 --> 00:58:07.739
So, um, and the the cool thing is because it's done so professionally, it will last two or three days.
00:58:07.739 --> 00:58:19.835
It's just, you know, it's only like 60 or 70 dollars, like even at the highest tier, so it's not like a crazy luxury, but sure is it's amazing oh, I should try it before like an event or something.
00:58:19.856 --> 00:58:27.795
Yeah, you should yeah, yeah I first had a blowout after my first balayage and I was in love with my hair.
00:58:27.795 --> 00:58:33.547
I was obsessed and I was just taking so many selfies like I couldn't get enough of it.
00:58:33.547 --> 00:58:35.219
I wanted it to last forever.
00:58:35.219 --> 00:58:45.144
But I I was like, okay, I see, there's like all these steps and processes that go into it and you really that's why they like charge you so much when you go to do it.
00:58:45.144 --> 00:58:46.900
But it's fun to do.
00:58:46.900 --> 00:58:49.088
Definitely, do it as like a birthday treat or something.
00:58:49.128 --> 00:58:49.210
Yes.
00:58:49.532 --> 00:58:49.914
It's great.
00:58:50.755 --> 00:58:57.364
What is so cool today is there's so many YouTube channels that will just teach you how to do all this stuff.
00:58:57.364 --> 00:59:10.903
Like there's this one I'll put her in the show notes but like this woman that does like whatever hair product you have, like a Dyson, and she will walk you through how to give yourself like a professional blowout.
00:59:10.903 --> 00:59:20.458
And one of the biggest tips I found is like the sectioning, because this top up here you want to section that and then you get the ends and you section it there.
00:59:20.458 --> 00:59:28.023
So this is down and then you go piece by piece through your hair with clips and like you're really focused on the roots.
00:59:28.023 --> 00:59:32.458
Like there's so many like techniques to teach you how to do that stuff these days.
00:59:32.458 --> 00:59:35.244
Like it's it's a miracle, it's, it's fantastic.
00:59:35.244 --> 00:59:38.099
Yeah, I wish I was talented enough.
00:59:38.737 --> 00:59:43.347
I can't even follow a basic hair curling tutorial, so I doubt I'd be able to do a blowout yeah.
00:59:44.976 --> 00:59:47.664
They make it look so easy, oh go ahead.
00:59:49.137 --> 00:59:55.485
It's this thing where you can go online and find makeup tutorials and I'm done by the most beautiful woman on earth.
00:59:55.485 --> 01:00:02.242
Of course, makeup looks good on you, like, yeah, you did like an eyeliner thing, but you're a model.
01:00:02.242 --> 01:00:04.235
So, like, is this going to be applicable to me?
01:00:04.235 --> 01:00:13.681
Usually not, and I feel the same thing, feel the same way with hairstyles where, like, I can look online and someone has like a beautiful, like braid in their hair.
01:00:13.681 --> 01:00:15.025
I would love to do that.
01:00:15.025 --> 01:00:21.545
I know that if I have a braid on my hair, it's going to be like this long and that's going to be half the hair on my head or not.
01:00:21.545 --> 01:00:24.740
This long, this thick, it's gonna be like this long, that's gonna be all my hair.
01:00:24.740 --> 01:00:35.588
So I just feel like, so like I've never gotten into doing hair because I realized, like, pretty much anything I do, it's like whatever, it's fine.
01:00:35.588 --> 01:00:37.780
Um, so, yeah, I find this problem with makeup tutorials too, because it's like, whatever, it's fine.
01:00:37.800 --> 01:00:52.063
So, yeah, I find this problem with makeup tutorials too, because it's always done by, exactly like you said, models that are in their 20s with perfect skin, and it's like I want to see a makeup tutorial by someone in her 40s with, like, decent skin.
01:00:52.063 --> 01:00:54.989
Like, how do you do these eyeliner tricks?
01:00:54.989 --> 01:00:57.760
So you've got all the fine lines around the edges of your eyes.
01:00:57.760 --> 01:01:04.420
It's just like you can put a backpack on me like Bane, filled with Botox, and I'm still going to have those.
01:01:05.797 --> 01:01:07.570
No, brie, you nailed it Like.
01:01:07.570 --> 01:01:08.936
It's so true, Like before.
01:01:08.936 --> 01:01:09.478
It's funny.
01:01:09.478 --> 01:01:23.045
Before I had FFS I would watch all of these tutorials on how to do eyeliner for hooded eyes or hooded eyelids tutorials on how to do eyeliner for hooded eyes or hooded eyelids and like there's a couple of celebrities that have them.
01:01:23.065 --> 01:01:32.478
But like, ultimately, what I found is like I just couldn't get it to look good, like I I would put it on and it would be fine, but it would smudge because I would blink and like I had all these problems.
01:01:32.478 --> 01:01:49.387
And then I got ffs and all the problems went away and I was like oh, wow, yeah, so much of it has to do with, just like, where you're starting from like you were saying if your skin is good and it's like tight and there's not all these wrinkles and everything it's, it's just not as hard.
01:01:49.876 --> 01:01:50.777
What are you doing with?
01:01:50.797 --> 01:01:57.365
my eyes today that looks so good sky oh yeah, I do the same thing every time.
01:01:57.465 --> 01:02:01.577
Like I have the same go-to regimen where I use the maybelline.
01:02:01.577 --> 01:02:12.367
Um liquid metallic eye eyeliner um, I love it so much, like it dries pretty quickly and like I just put it on, like you know, I don't know, it's just easy for me to do it.
01:02:12.367 --> 01:02:14.742
The colors is it just one color thing?
01:02:14.742 --> 01:02:18.014
Oh yeah, when it comes to the eyeshadow, I use color pop.
01:02:18.014 --> 01:02:23.047
I don't know if y'all know I don't know this yeah um, I, I love them, I think they're they're awesome.
01:02:23.086 --> 01:02:37.623
But yeah, I just start, I start with a light, a light layer and then I do like a shimmer and then I put more definition for like darker colors and I just like do them to the contour of the like eye and I just brush it out and I blend it and then I do one final layer of eyeliner.
01:02:37.623 --> 01:02:43.655
Um, and that's really all I have to do, and it pops out like this and I'm like all right, that's good enough for me.
01:02:43.655 --> 01:03:01.701
Um, but there will be times where I'll do more blended and I'll do like more of a smoky eye and because I really, I really love like the dark, like I just love making the eyes pop out and adding like the contrast that the dark is, it's like smoky eyes, just the way to go for it totally.
01:03:02.382 --> 01:03:26.090
I mean, I had a similar experience with you where it's like early on in transition, putting on makeup, it was like I'd look in the mirror and I'd be like, oh okay, so I put like a little bit of makeup on a face that I don't really like and so, yeah, I didn't really like doing makeup then and it feels like, as I've gotten more comfortable with myself, I've found that much more enjoyable.
01:03:26.090 --> 01:03:34.440
And so there's kind of in this like reversal where, like you know, maybe I don't super like styling my hair, but then when I get extensions, I'm like, yes, I'm gonna put put in braids.
01:03:34.440 --> 01:03:34.940
So it's tough.
01:03:34.940 --> 01:03:41.302
I think that you have to kind of love yourself first.
01:03:41.302 --> 01:03:45.119
Yeah, I agree, it's hard because people chase these.
01:03:45.119 --> 01:03:52.525
You know, they want to look beautiful, they put on lots of makeup, but you have to feel beautiful first.
01:03:53.436 --> 01:04:05.746
I think it's hard because I mean, you know, like sometimes you do still see that guy looking back at you in the mirror, right, and it's my lowest days, like I know it's not true, but I sometimes feel that way.
01:04:05.746 --> 01:04:06.907
Do you know what I mean?
01:04:06.907 --> 01:04:20.996
So I think it's like this lifelong error that's just never going to go away, no matter what away, no matter what.
01:04:21.016 --> 01:04:23.384
Yeah, so much of I don't know, but I've had lots of growth there as well, much more comfortable with myself.
01:04:23.384 --> 01:04:28.159
And you know, on this trip I've been taking a lot more photos myself and I've been smiling.
01:04:28.159 --> 01:04:31.248
I feel like I've I've learned to smile in photos.
01:04:31.248 --> 01:04:42.905
Um, yeah, because from the time that I was like 14 to maybe like 20 years old, there's almost no photos of me, not with friends, not with family.
01:04:42.905 --> 01:04:52.543
I'd go to Christmas dinners or you know, I'd get a photo taken with my family and it would destroy my day, it would ruin it and I would be depressed for like the rest of the week.
01:04:52.543 --> 01:04:59.168
And I have slowly realized that I'm able to like accept how I look.
01:04:59.168 --> 01:05:04.601
Maybe it's not how I'd want to, but like it's okay and it's worth it to have those memories.
01:05:04.601 --> 01:05:11.364
So now I'm building those for the first time in my life, even though I'm not like the model I want to be.
01:05:11.465 --> 01:05:11.945
I love that.
01:05:11.945 --> 01:05:15.181
I think this is just being a woman.
01:05:15.181 --> 01:05:17.646
To be honest, I think all women feel this way.
01:05:18.614 --> 01:05:22.021
Yeah, definitely All right.
01:05:22.021 --> 01:05:25.728
So we're thrilled today to have a special guest, benjamin Ryan.
01:05:25.728 --> 01:05:31.407
He's an independent journalist who focuses on health care, public health and science.
01:05:31.407 --> 01:05:44.467
He's written for a lot of major outlets, such as the New York Times, the Guardian and NBC News, and has spent a lot of years reporting on, I believe, hiv and its impact, as well as gender medicine.
01:05:44.467 --> 01:05:47.643
So, benjamin, welcome to Dollcast.
01:05:47.643 --> 01:05:49.599
We're very excited to have you here today.
01:05:49.820 --> 01:05:50.742
Great to be here, ladies.
01:05:51.302 --> 01:05:52.326
We're so excited.
01:05:52.326 --> 01:05:53.695
Oh my God, yeah.
01:05:53.695 --> 01:06:06.704
So I wanted to start off and say just offer an apology, because I feel like trans Twitter is so mean to you, I feel like you're the representative of, had to go and like apologize for them.
01:06:06.724 --> 01:06:08.764
So that's kind of how I feel.
01:06:08.764 --> 01:06:34.144
You know, the reason I like your work is I think if I made a list of the reporters that I think are doing like the best job of just straight down the middle reporting, you would 100% be on that list.
01:06:34.144 --> 01:06:44.813
And I think it is so frustrating and it shows the the frankly, the intellectual bankruptcy of some people on our side that they spend so much time attacking you.
01:06:44.813 --> 01:06:45.775
I mean, how does that?
01:06:45.775 --> 01:06:47.240
How does that make you feel?
01:06:48.184 --> 01:06:54.264
I mean, I know what my principles are, you know and I know where I stand and it's really nice when people reflect back to me exactly what they are.
01:06:54.264 --> 01:06:55.398
You know, you're spot on and that is.
01:06:55.398 --> 01:06:56.445
You know my goal is to be a science journalist.
01:06:56.445 --> 01:06:57.329
You know, you're spot on and that is.
01:06:57.329 --> 01:06:59.280
My goal is to be a science journalist, and that you know.
01:06:59.280 --> 01:07:11.402
Coming from the HIV reporting which I've done since the beginning of my career in the early 2000s, I started to see, indeed, when advocacy seeks into public health, sometimes their needs are aligned but sometimes they conflict.
01:07:11.402 --> 01:07:23.465
So you know it's my job not to parse those and not to just lean on the side of whatever some non-profit might think I should say, and so it is very bothersome to me in journalism as a whole.
01:07:23.465 --> 01:07:40.590
There was a piece that came out of the Guardian this week that was focusing really intently on the expert witnesses that testified in a lot of these cases about gender medicine ban for kids, and it was really scrutinizing how a lot of judges thought these guys were bunk and none of them had treated any trans people, or a lot of them hadn't.
01:07:40.590 --> 01:07:43.539
And it was extremely frustrating to me for two reasons.
01:07:43.539 --> 01:08:03.300
One, the reason this article was running was because it was suggesting that if the Supreme Court validates the six district court's decision that the Tennessee ban of gender affirming care for kids is constitutional, that this would be in effect validating all of these expert witnesses that they don't like.
01:08:03.300 --> 01:08:05.286
But the case doesn't even really hinge on that.
01:08:05.286 --> 01:08:13.465
For one thing and two, I've read a lot of the briefs which I don't think this reporter has concerning this case and they're really not about the strength of the science.
01:08:13.465 --> 01:08:30.386
They're more about legal questions to do with whether transgender kids or kids with gender euphoria receiving these treatments count as a class if it's sex-based discrimination or if transgender kids count as what's called a quasi-suspect class under the law, justifying greater scrutiny of the law whether it discriminates.
01:08:30.386 --> 01:08:37.127
So it was just sort of an excuse to run these guys through the mill, you know, put them through the meat grinder and criticize them.
01:08:37.127 --> 01:08:44.061
But if you read the briefs they don't really refer much to the expert witnesses statements.
01:08:44.061 --> 01:08:52.395
They refer to the fact that in Europe and the United Kingdom and the cast review that all of these health authorities have brought up gender affirming care for kids under scrutiny and questioned.
01:08:52.476 --> 01:09:00.265
You know whether the science is strong and so, and you can see, there's a James Cantor is a sex researcher in Canada.
01:09:00.265 --> 01:09:10.204
He's been one of these witnesses who've gone and testified on behalf of a lot of the bands, and you'll see, in an email that got put online by Jesse Singel, what James Cantor said to the Guardian journalists.
01:09:10.204 --> 01:09:11.640
He said you know all of the.
01:09:11.640 --> 01:09:12.176
You know it's.
01:09:12.176 --> 01:09:15.640
All of these other institutions have come to this conclusion about the strength of the science.
01:09:15.640 --> 01:09:18.359
Other institutions have come to this conclusion about the strength of the science.
01:09:18.359 --> 01:09:21.427
The guardian guy misquoted him and said that he said this, not all these institutions.
01:09:21.427 --> 01:09:23.877
And so you see how the sausage is made.
01:09:23.877 --> 01:09:33.865
You see they, they want to demonize a certain perspective, and there's this concept that the, the right or whatever is right coded is always incorrect about science.
01:09:33.865 --> 01:09:35.237
In this house, we believe in science.
01:09:35.237 --> 01:09:42.025
Sometimes, however, however, the right is correct, and I don't think that people on the left can really reconcile with that very well.
01:09:42.354 --> 01:09:42.494
Sure.
01:09:42.494 --> 01:09:46.164
Well, what I want to do is like there are two conversations we can have today.
01:09:46.164 --> 01:10:03.077
I'm sure we can get into the meat of all of your reporting, which I would love to do, I think, for right now I just want to start with a more basic question, which is why is it so hard for us structurally to have a nuanced conversation about this?
01:10:03.077 --> 01:10:07.025
Because, from my perception, I think there are two dueling cults here.
01:10:07.025 --> 01:10:11.944
I think you've got, you know, sky, what I think you've brought me around on calling gender ideology.
01:10:11.944 --> 01:10:15.341
You know this kind of extremist trans view.
01:10:15.341 --> 01:10:21.980
Let's abolish gender self ID, abolish medical standards without science to justify it.
01:10:21.980 --> 01:10:26.557
Like, open up all care as quickly as possible, don't look at any of the downsides.
01:10:26.557 --> 01:10:28.703
That's kind of the gender ideology side.
01:10:28.703 --> 01:10:29.445
I think.
01:10:29.506 --> 01:10:41.917
On the other, you have what I could very charitably call the gender critical side, which is really a it's a harassment cult that does have the seed of valid public policy objection there.
01:10:41.917 --> 01:10:45.827
Like we do need a system for how, you know, trans women use the restroom.
01:10:45.827 --> 01:10:59.457
That is a reasonable thing to have a conversation about, but all too often, like I've probably gotten a thousand comments about my vagina in the last you know day on, which is just weird and gross and inappropriate, which is what this devolves into.
01:10:59.457 --> 01:11:01.841
So like from your perspective.
01:11:01.841 --> 01:11:09.345
Like what are the structural barriers that you see for someone like you going out and just giving a straight reporting?
01:11:09.345 --> 01:11:14.376
Like here's what the clinics are doing, here's what the times are, here's what the criteria are, here's who's funding it.
01:11:14.376 --> 01:11:16.021
Here's the information.
01:11:16.021 --> 01:11:20.636
So, so as citizens, we can make a valid, like public policy choice here.
01:11:20.636 --> 01:11:28.438
How can we like, move away from the extremes and like and get to the meat of a substantive conversation.
01:11:28.438 --> 01:11:33.155
What do you need from the public to be able to do your work with less bullshit?
01:11:33.155 --> 01:11:33.577
I think?
01:11:33.617 --> 01:11:49.529
I would say I think that yeah, two major factors I think have enforced extreme opinions rising to the top, and one is gerrymandering within congressional districts so it makes it much harder for someone who doesn't have an extreme opinion to the left or right to win a primary, because all you need to do is win a primary.
01:11:49.529 --> 01:11:50.740
So I think that's a big part of the problem.
01:11:50.740 --> 01:12:00.515
I think that social media obviously, as we all know, the algorithm favors rage and division, and so that gets people going and gets people engaged.
01:12:00.515 --> 01:12:03.001
Those apps are there to keep you engaged.
01:12:03.001 --> 01:12:09.542
Twitter pays people who have large followings based on engagement, so there's a lot of incentives in there.
01:12:09.542 --> 01:12:21.090
So, and then more specifically, glad, in particular, hrc, lambda, legal, aclu these big, big nonprofit groups, some of which are very specifically LGBTQ, and then ACLU, of course, has that as a division.
01:12:21.090 --> 01:12:39.390
They're not out there looking for nuance, and I was listening the other day to Ezra Klein's podcast and he was talking with some expert about this idea that the Democratic Party, that a lot of the local bosses, a lot of that work that used to be more within the actual democratic structure, has been outsourced to nonprofits.
01:12:39.390 --> 01:12:43.895
So I think that GLAAD is really effectively speaking for the Democratic Party.
01:12:43.916 --> 01:12:46.802
And when people puzzle over this idea, what is this?
01:12:46.802 --> 01:12:58.085
Kamala Harris never mentioned trans people when she was out there campaigning during those hundred days that she was on the trail and that's true, and then she was asked about it a couple of times and she ev, you know, with that idea of like.
01:12:58.085 --> 01:12:59.108
I'll just follow the law.
01:12:59.108 --> 01:13:02.555
But what people I think are reacting to is a larger structure.
01:13:02.555 --> 01:13:05.722
Glad is an extremist organization.
01:13:05.722 --> 01:13:19.729
When it comes to trans issues it's extremely inflexible, and then the way that has come after the new york times and in other institutions, and me in particular, um really is quite illiberal and it suppresses an even discussion of this.
01:13:19.729 --> 01:13:34.021
The idea that anyone, much less a major nonprofit institution that rakes in millions of dollars a year, should park a truck outside of a major news organization, as GLAAD did, with a sign that says the science is settled about anything, is completely amazing to me.
01:13:34.021 --> 01:13:37.185
So I have a pretty unique position, in fact, hey.
01:13:39.875 --> 01:13:41.016
Hey Taff welcome position.
01:13:41.016 --> 01:13:41.637
Hey, welcome back.
01:13:42.319 --> 01:13:43.962
I started early.
01:13:43.962 --> 01:14:01.694
It was two years ago that I really started getting invested in the trans kids issue and started reading about it all the time, and so I spent a lot of last year trying to find left, left leaning, liberal institutions, media institutions to take my work, and they all said no, and the bottom line is they were all too afraid to.
01:14:01.694 --> 01:14:02.514
And what they're afraid of?
01:14:02.514 --> 01:14:05.001
Afraid of glad, afraid of twitter, the afraid of the pushback.
01:14:05.001 --> 01:14:10.403
These people don't want to lose their jobs, and especially in a time when the media is shrinking their layoffs.
01:14:10.403 --> 01:14:21.814
People become more risk averse, and a lot of what editors are thinking when they decide whether or not to greenlight an article is we must protect the institution of our publication above all else.
01:14:21.814 --> 01:14:26.247
So it makes for less courage in producing risky journalism.
01:14:27.216 --> 01:14:31.688
I hear you, though, but I mean don't you think there's a criticism for the other side as well?
01:14:31.688 --> 01:14:32.818
I mean there is.
01:14:32.818 --> 01:14:40.756
I know you have faced all kinds of harassment just for like gendering me correctly, I know you have faced all kinds of harassment just for like gendering me correctly yeah, my genderism, my driver's license.
01:14:40.775 --> 01:14:43.341
I do not see the same structural incentives for the.
01:14:43.341 --> 01:14:47.349
You know generously calling them the gender critical movement.
01:14:47.349 --> 01:14:52.614
There's a real mission, I feel, to amplify science Like.
01:14:52.614 --> 01:14:53.900
Here's a really good example.
01:14:53.900 --> 01:14:58.872
You know you're seeing AGP used as a shorthand for degenerate.
01:14:58.932 --> 01:15:17.662
that cannot transition well and never belongs in a woman's space right exactly, and you know, like I'm not going to say like agp does not have a difficult road at times, but you know, I think it's just inaccurate to say these are not people that need gender affirming care, like a lot of, you know, other trans people do.
01:15:17.863 --> 01:15:34.715
So I do not see that project working both ways absolutely you know, and it's a big question of how much of the right when it comes to the bans on gender transition treatment for kids, how much of that is authentic and a real belief that they are genuinely protecting children, and how much of that is cynical.
01:15:34.715 --> 01:15:40.837
You know, after gay marriage has passed, all of those efforts to use that as a wedge issue died sometime past.
01:15:40.837 --> 01:15:44.538
Oh, here's another great, another great issue that we can use to rally the base.
01:15:44.538 --> 01:15:52.983
Jeremy Peters wrote a good story about this in the New York Times last year.
01:15:52.983 --> 01:15:58.845
You know the way they talk about it isn't necessarily entirely in a way that you would consider pejorative or demeaning.
01:15:58.845 --> 01:16:06.649
It really is centered on the idea of protecting children from something that they do sincerely believe is harmful and that they believe that the science backs them up.
01:16:06.649 --> 01:16:13.792
Sure, but yes, I think, especially in England, the TERFs, trans exclusionary radical feminists.
01:16:13.792 --> 01:16:21.081
You know their movement is remarkably inflexible, but one can argue that that is being provoked from the left.
01:16:21.180 --> 01:16:33.850
These people, they were more flexible before, but they've been pushed so much that it has radicalized them yeah, I don't know, I feel I feel like there's like two extremes here, like we've been talking about, but if I feel like what really?
01:16:34.233 --> 01:17:00.319
what really bothers me is really the failures of w path, which I feel like you've really covered and it's like undermines our credibility from the standpoint of like, oh yeah, transition can help some people, but when you have, like this approach that you can't challenge them and you have to always like, meet in the middle and you have people in situations that there's clear mental health issues going on and you're still being like, okay, how can we get them hrt and get them down this pathway?
01:17:00.319 --> 01:17:06.561
It's like, why are you even considering the pathway when you could diagnose and treat these other conditions first?
01:17:06.561 --> 01:17:08.948
Yeah, and possibly rule that out, like it's.
01:17:09.777 --> 01:17:51.720
I felt like your recent article I think it was like the w path audio leak or something like that yeah yeah, it was so eye-opening to this, it was interesting so what she's referring to is somebody leaked me a video from the world professional association for transgender health, or wfh, recent conference in lisbon and it was just basically just a video meeting like we're having now, and it was a group of practitioners from a gender clinic in connecticut and they were they were giving case studies of three different cases of what they consider the more quote, unquote, nuanced, which was a euphemism that they were using for not too clear cut cases of people who are most definitely gender dysphoric and transgender and would definitely be helped by transitioning medications.
01:17:52.243 --> 01:17:59.157
And so you see them dancing around it and just never wanting to admit that they were even thinking of saying no to people.
01:17:59.157 --> 01:18:02.023
You know, one guy was on anti-psychotic medication.
01:18:02.023 --> 01:18:17.921
Another guy was by gender and hadn't told their wife that they had two genders and wanted breasts, and you know this was obviously going to create a serious problem at home that maybe this person should work out before you know, looking into getting breast implants and taking estrogen.
01:18:18.180 --> 01:18:23.439
So it was very interesting to say that they they call themselves partners on this person's gender journey.
01:18:23.439 --> 01:18:28.818
And the real question is there's this history in medicine of the doctor being very paternalistic.
01:18:28.818 --> 01:18:34.457
So there's been a shift in recent years to try to move that more towards shared decision making.
01:18:34.457 --> 01:18:41.569
But the fact of the matter is the doctor has the authority and they have the prescription pad, so it's not an even balance, but they're trying to even it out.
01:18:41.569 --> 01:18:49.099
But this is suggesting almost that the patient is really leading the way and the doctor is really in the service economy.
01:18:49.099 --> 01:18:53.176
So is there a role and I know that you've spoken a lot about this that you really support?
01:18:53.216 --> 01:18:57.322
Brianna, the classic gatekeeping that has fallen away in recent years.
01:18:57.322 --> 01:19:03.829
Poor Brianna, the classic gatekeeping that has fallen away in recent years, like Florence Ashley, you know, the law expert at the University of Alberta, is really opposed to and says it's harmful.
01:19:03.829 --> 01:19:14.010
And so that's the real debate of what role does gatekeeping have and what role does the science have in telling us whether the gatekeeping is helpful or not?
01:19:14.010 --> 01:19:16.818
And there are so many unanswered questions, in particular about kids these days.
01:19:17.019 --> 01:19:19.963
Well, I know, ben, this is where I'm really torn on this.
01:19:19.963 --> 01:19:26.443
So, like when I transitioned, um, I got out of rehab, so, like the hard drugs I was using I was off of that.
01:19:26.443 --> 01:19:29.395
I was still drinking too much, right?
01:19:29.395 --> 01:19:33.706
Like just trying to get these thoughts of being a woman out of my head, right?
01:19:33.706 --> 01:19:47.368
Um, I wouldn't say I had depression, but I was really like severe social anxiety, like I had comorbidities right now, the instant, the instant, the instant, literally, that I got on hrt.
01:19:47.368 --> 01:19:51.863
Like I have not felt I need to drink a single day since.
01:19:51.863 --> 01:19:56.640
Completely, I could go out right now and go on a three-week bender and just stop instantly.
01:19:56.640 --> 01:20:02.130
Like I don't the core cause for like that addiction, that social anxiety, is treated right.
01:20:02.636 --> 01:20:10.006
So I think it's a fine line that you have to draw with the doctor, like where does, do you know what I mean?
01:20:10.006 --> 01:20:13.244
At what point is the comorbidity driven by gender dysphoria?
01:20:13.244 --> 01:20:16.063
Or to what point do you need to fix it first?
01:20:16.063 --> 01:20:18.747
Right, I think like it's really tricky.
01:20:18.747 --> 01:20:20.998
But I also see it the other way.
01:20:20.998 --> 01:20:28.261
Like there's a discussion like legitimately happening on my twitter yesterday with people talking like what, some people are poor.
01:20:28.261 --> 01:20:37.856
You think you're expecting to go on hrt when that's 30 a month, I'm like sweetheart, like transition is the most expensive thing you're ever going to do in your life.
01:20:37.856 --> 01:20:44.725
If you think it's only going to cost you 30, if you can't swing $30 a month, you are not going to have a successful time.
01:20:44.765 --> 01:20:51.279
It's because there's this prevailing notion that it's a right to transition Right and it's that is like the.
01:20:51.279 --> 01:20:54.887
I don't want to say it's like the toxic source, but that's what's infiltrating.
01:20:54.887 --> 01:20:56.738
That's the essence of gender ideology.
01:20:56.738 --> 01:21:00.068
That's working its way in w path where they're afraid to.
01:21:00.068 --> 01:21:02.092
It's funny because they're conscious too.
01:21:02.092 --> 01:21:09.238
They're like we're not just here to hand out hormones, we're here to help get an assessment on the drivers, and like they'll play the language.
01:21:09.238 --> 01:21:11.023
But at the end of the day, yeah, they're.
01:21:11.023 --> 01:21:19.719
They're too afraid to be seen as a gatekeeper and so they're going to prescribe the medication, even if it's not a a good fit, and there's other solutions that could be had.
01:21:19.719 --> 01:21:24.242
And it's like the problems run deep and I think it has a lot to do with this ideology.
01:21:24.882 --> 01:21:45.862
The reason why trans women ought to be allowed to play in women's sports is because they have a fundamental medical need to transition, and it's not just like a lifestyle thing, it's not just like a cosmetic thing.
01:21:46.996 --> 01:22:29.002
And we have pushed this argument so far that now there's a real feeling within progressive circles, which is maybe somewhat justified, that if you tell someone like, oh you know, you maybe shouldn't transition or you don't have a medical need we have these like nuanced cases where there isn't clear history of, like long-term gender dysphoria the political apparatus built up around that has basically made it so what you're telling someone is you know you have no political right to engage with this gender and no one needs to respect you because you know everyone else has this medical reason and you maybe don't.
01:22:29.423 --> 01:22:45.891
I really think that the solution here is to move towards a model which bases rights on freedom and self-expression and to enable people to express themselves freely, but then also with that you have to accept certain consequences.
01:22:45.891 --> 01:22:51.435
Like maybe not everyone wants to gender you correctly, maybe you know you don't get access to women's sports teams.
01:22:51.435 --> 01:22:58.695
Like you have to accept that trade-off and we've just pushed so far in one direction which is maybe acceptable for some people.
01:22:58.695 --> 01:23:07.180
You know, science, I think, is evolving on this, um, but it's so clear that we've just, you know, we've reached the end of the road.
01:23:07.180 --> 01:23:14.588
A little bit on the political capital around this well, sorry, I just wanted to.
01:23:14.628 --> 01:23:29.639
I was gonna say I want to hear from kelly, so go ahead well, I hear you guys keep bringing up the science and it's just like you know I don't really know like what that is, because it seems like a lot of like the, the signs of gender dysphoria, and diagnosing someone with that is all based off of things you say and feelings.
01:23:29.639 --> 01:23:32.806
I just don't really feel like it's advanced that much at all.
01:23:32.806 --> 01:23:35.158
To me it's kind of like how do you prove someone's gay?
01:23:35.659 --> 01:23:39.328
you know you can't really do that, it's just based off of someone saying well, I'm attracted to this.
01:23:39.835 --> 01:23:47.368
So I mean, I feel like anyone could go and follow the W path and like, say the right things in order to get that diagnosis, and I think that's and they do.
01:23:47.368 --> 01:23:49.737
They look up online, it's very common.
01:23:49.957 --> 01:23:54.403
Yeah, I think, when my parents called me making out with that boy when I was 12.
01:23:54.403 --> 01:23:56.987
That was pretty sad.
01:23:57.226 --> 01:24:04.132
Yeah, well, there are revealed preferences, right, like people who spend tens of thousands of dollars on surgery.
01:24:04.132 --> 01:24:08.002
You know it's a pretty good indicator that they really value this thing.
01:24:08.002 --> 01:24:18.359
And I mean ask like David Hume, he would say like you can't prove anything, right, like it's like maybe the sun will rise tomorrow, maybe not.
01:24:18.359 --> 01:24:24.746
You know, you're getting to like a real problem, which is it's very hard to tell what's going on actually in someone's head.
01:24:24.746 --> 01:24:28.023
You know, how do I know someone's conscious, how do I know they see the same colors as me?
01:24:28.023 --> 01:24:29.707
Totally legitimate.
01:24:29.707 --> 01:24:40.957
But you know, I think in medicine we generally accept that, like you can diagnose depression, you can tell, you know, if someone has gotten better by taking an ssri.
01:24:40.957 --> 01:24:50.003
I mean, maybe it's not like the highest, you know, it's not like physics level of evidence, but I think that there are validated measures.
01:24:50.045 --> 01:25:00.930
Yeah, measuring yeah, right, yeah, I totally agree, totally brianna, you talked a lot about how the criteria in the DSM for diagnosing congenital dysphoria has expanded.
01:25:00.930 --> 01:25:02.654
The bar has been lowered.
01:25:03.015 --> 01:25:04.039
Expanded is a nice word.
01:25:04.039 --> 01:25:05.862
It's a word to the thing.
01:25:05.862 --> 01:25:09.600
I think it's unshrunken actually.
01:25:11.960 --> 01:25:22.261
I don't think it's necessarily a problem if people are getting easy access to HRT, but the problem is that the doctors are taking a lot of responsibility for that right.
01:25:22.341 --> 01:25:33.511
So by prescribing it and making it this thing where, like, we expect the doctor to validate the gender dysphoria in order to give out the prescription, you know, suddenly we're not treating it like cosmetic surgery.
01:25:33.511 --> 01:25:40.096
Suddenly we're treating it as the doctor is actually staking like a claim that this person is going to.
01:25:40.096 --> 01:25:53.622
This person needs this medication to improve in mental health and they need to be integrated in society as a woman in order to feel positively, to be, to live a successful life, which maybe that's not necessarily true for all cases.
01:25:53.622 --> 01:26:19.185
And so you know, I think this level lower level of evidential standard that's okay, but we need to be really honest if we are lowering that and say like, okay, you know, freedom, freedom to control your body but like maybe that doesn't extend into other people's freedom but also differentiating between the ethics of an adult, somebody who's 20s, let's say, who has been for many, many years versus a child.
01:26:19.265 --> 01:26:26.479
You know who hasn't even done puberty yet hasn't had that kind of sexual awakening that might help them reconcile with gender versus sexual identity.
01:26:26.539 --> 01:26:46.640
If there's a push and pull there and I think a lot of people look at this fairly simplistically, you know m gesson had this quite famous, now op-ed in the new york Times this week in which they argued essentially, which is they had also said to David Revinick in the New Yorker interview last year that kids make all kinds of decisions, and I think that that's a real false equivalence.
01:26:47.020 --> 01:27:25.943
And in the New Yorker they refer to things like pointing the ROTC or taking a lot of debt for school, and Gessen was trying to argue essentially that the options for what has been long considered a human right, given the mistakes that have remained in the eugenics movement and sterilizing the quote unquote, mentally incompetent, that sort of thing.
01:27:25.943 --> 01:27:30.939
We as a society have concluded this based on past errors, but so much of the.
01:27:30.939 --> 01:27:56.338
We must repair the past efforts that are being undertaken by the people who one could call a gender ideologist is we must not do to trans people what we did to the gays, and I think that's also fairly simplistic and I think that you know gender identity, I think, is harder to make sense of and wrap your head around, than then, at least for for guys, for whether they're gay or not, because right there is a good test of whether you're gay and it happens to be attached to your body.
01:27:56.819 --> 01:28:06.091
I mean what we were saying earlier, that there's no one way to measure with confidence that someone is going to be happy with a transgender.
01:28:06.091 --> 01:28:07.378
Yeah, you know with that pathway.
01:28:07.399 --> 01:28:11.103
Yes, it's very hard to remove all false positives.
01:28:11.184 --> 01:28:12.476
Yeah, I mean Kelly.
01:28:12.476 --> 01:28:22.586
I'd really like to hear some of your thoughts, experiences, how this is for you, having been through this at a young age and, as I gather, you're very happy with having done it at a young age.
01:28:22.586 --> 01:28:27.287
So how does that influence your perception of whether this is a good idea for other young people?
01:28:29.175 --> 01:28:48.282
It's a tough question for me, just because I like to think I'm one of the lucky ones, just because I've seen so many people that did transition at a young age, that did regret it, but but then at the same time, like you know, people on the far left will present me with quote-unquote evidence, which I'm not sure how valid it is or not, that you know, the majority of people who did transition as kids are like me.
01:28:48.282 --> 01:28:49.163
They don't have regrets.
01:28:49.163 --> 01:28:55.724
But you know, it's just nowadays like you can't believe any study, you see, because it's just like you never know if it's biased or not.
01:28:55.724 --> 01:29:11.655
You know, um, I I kind of disagree with with taff a little bit when she says hrt shouldn't be gatekept, because I I do feel like it's just costumery, it's not what I said well, yeah, I'm okay with less gatekeeping, as long as we.
01:29:11.716 --> 01:29:22.583
You know, responsibility falls on the right people yeah, I don't, yeah, go ahead I I just kind of feel like you guys are so like oh well, adults should have access to it, but kids like shouldn't.
01:29:22.583 --> 01:29:27.364
And that's like a lot of people's hard line, at least when I see a lot of right-wing extremist talk on twitter.
01:29:27.364 --> 01:29:44.287
But to me it's like I just kind of feel like for everybody, regardless if you transition at 15, like I did, or if you're transitioning at like 50, it should just be like a really slow, hard process to to even start a medical transition, just because I I don't feel like it's an easy decision for anyone at any age.
01:29:44.287 --> 01:29:45.078
It's such a big.
01:29:45.158 --> 01:29:48.173
Thing what about the fact that puberty is oncoming and you're having?
01:29:48.173 --> 01:29:49.096
You're trying to beat that?
01:29:49.096 --> 01:29:49.677
You know?
01:29:49.677 --> 01:29:52.425
Yeah, doesn't that inevitably rush the decision.
01:29:52.484 --> 01:29:56.260
That's, that's the conundrum yeah, sometimes I think I want.
01:29:56.260 --> 01:30:00.148
I wonder if maybe transition or if I just let my puberty continue further.
01:30:00.148 --> 01:30:00.649
Who's to say?
01:30:00.649 --> 01:30:03.875
Maybe I wouldn't have wanted to transition and testosterone would have taken over?
01:30:03.875 --> 01:30:09.547
I don't know the answer to that question, but I know that I'm happy now and I know that I love my life this way.
01:30:09.547 --> 01:30:15.104
But who's to say if my parents were more conservative and they didn't allow that to take place, if I wouldn't have grown out of it?
01:30:16.405 --> 01:30:27.018
I mean, before affirmation therapy took the stage, it was a watchful waiting approach.
01:30:27.018 --> 01:30:36.125
I mean that's what Ken Zucker and his clinic up in Toronto did for so long until activists basically looked for a case where you know he wasn't transitioning people, transitioning kids and you know, jumped on that and then got them shut down.
01:30:36.125 --> 01:30:42.106
But that was sort of the standard, like we didn't have to make it illegal in like areas to do this.
01:30:42.106 --> 01:30:47.905
It was just a very thorough, regimented approach based on time, because there's no good criteria.
01:30:47.905 --> 01:30:53.064
We need the time component to sort of help assess that persistent motivation.
01:30:53.064 --> 01:30:56.315
And I think by the time you reach adults it's a little bit different.
01:30:56.315 --> 01:31:04.122
But I do think that you know the goal of good therapy and medicine shouldn't be to just affirm a patient's feelings.
01:31:04.122 --> 01:31:09.565
It should be to gently challenge them, explore them and help them reach the conclusions of what they're.
01:31:09.565 --> 01:31:14.369
You know what's going to best benefit them term gender affirming care is.
01:31:14.409 --> 01:31:23.556
It presumes that the care is affirming the correct gender, and so it's baked in.
01:31:23.556 --> 01:31:25.305
It has baked in a bias, and then you'll hear people try to push their words around.
01:31:25.305 --> 01:31:30.425
Oh well, afterwards they didn't detransition, they retransitioned, and we're still affirming their gender, because now their gender is just something else.
01:31:30.425 --> 01:31:49.136
Well, that would be nice if there were entire structure and an insurance system in place to help detransitioners, which there isn't, but I think that's a very cynical misuse of language, and so that's that's why I tend to use gender transition treatment, which I feel is a more neutral term that's something that's important to me.
01:31:49.597 --> 01:32:07.963
Um, as a journalist, I don't like the term sex assigned at birth, because I feel it's scientifically inaccurate, and I think it's important to differentiate between sex and gender, because is not what all of you ladies have done, as I gather, by going on hrt working against your natal sex, that's part of the process.
01:32:07.963 --> 01:32:12.436
To deny that it's just sort of deny what you're actually doing, and I think that that's perfect.
01:32:12.497 --> 01:32:17.162
I do feel like I have to say it didn't work out for me very well either.
01:32:17.162 --> 01:32:24.578
I was not exactly a duke from gi joe, like I didn't really take with that super well.
01:32:24.639 --> 01:32:28.636
But I think that your sex is one thing, but your gender is another that's totally fair.
01:32:28.976 --> 01:32:30.623
I I do feel like I just want to.
01:32:30.623 --> 01:32:42.048
I want to give just a little bit of pushback on what y'all are saying, because I feel like, out of everyone here, I'm the only one that's seen the other side of the book, like what happens when you don't get gender affirming care.
01:32:42.048 --> 01:32:54.423
And I made the decision to start transitioning when I was 25 and I can tell you what I saw from the people that were, you know, 30, 40, 50 and on up in the trans community that chose not to transition.
01:32:54.423 --> 01:32:59.029
There was a very, very large cohort of fetishistic cross-dressers.
01:32:59.029 --> 01:33:07.096
You know they were universally married and you know they had some really scary attitudes towards women.
01:33:07.096 --> 01:33:08.319
I'm just going to be honest.
01:33:08.319 --> 01:33:10.224
You had the closet cases.
01:33:10.304 --> 01:33:15.465
These are AGPs that you know just basically suppressed it their whole life.
01:33:15.465 --> 01:33:21.583
They would then spend all their time online in these communities trying to suppress this.
01:33:21.583 --> 01:33:31.481
They had a male persona and they had, like this real melancholy inside of them from like suppressing this side of themselves all of the time, and they had a lot of excuses.
01:33:31.481 --> 01:33:33.884
I cannot do this for my children or my wife.
01:33:33.884 --> 01:33:49.417
All of them were into women and I cannot think of a single person I've ever met in my entire life that is, into men in any kind of serious way and did not transition and regretted it in any way.
01:33:49.417 --> 01:33:52.604
I've just I've literally never run across that.
01:33:52.604 --> 01:33:57.399
So it's like I'm not trying to belittle anyone's feelings here.
01:33:57.399 --> 01:34:08.024
I'm just saying, like Kelly, you're a fairly feminine woman, like you just are, and I think if like I don't know, I think like I'm open to giving people time to figure this stuff out.
01:34:08.576 --> 01:34:23.962
But one of the reasons I really like the gender affirming care model or the old school way of doing things is at every step it requires something from the patient, like getting buy-in, getting agency, and then it gives you something in return.
01:34:24.344 --> 01:34:30.342
You commit to three months of therapy, then you get hormones, you get on hormones.
01:34:30.342 --> 01:34:36.622
You can then go to a doctor, take that agency, get your endocrinology check, see if levels are in the right way.
01:34:36.622 --> 01:34:43.744
Then you can start RLE, do RLE, get a full-time job, then you can start looking at vaginoplasty.
01:34:43.744 --> 01:34:57.229
So I think like this is something I would really love to stress to all of y'all is I really thought like you've got to understand it was an eye blink ago that insurance did not cover anything.
01:34:57.229 --> 01:35:12.576
Like I paid for every dime of transition myself and I always thought the moment Obamacare covered vaginoplasty and FFS and hormones, I thought that would just be utopia for trans people and I thought we would all end up well adjusted.
01:35:12.576 --> 01:35:17.021
It's clearly not happened and I think about this all the time.
01:35:17.021 --> 01:35:26.143
Why is the trans community have so much more opportunity to go live better lives than ever before Anything I ever dreamed of in my whole life?
01:35:26.143 --> 01:36:00.931
But we are more chaotic and more psychologically unhealthy and more miserable than ever before and the only answer I can come to is we are letting people in that are not served by these treatments like I can't think of anything else because the people like you, sky, you have this stuff paid for in a way I didn't and like you turned out normal, so don't know, I'm pretty crazy I live with 12 cats for you
01:36:01.695 --> 01:36:05.663
you're like, you're a cat lady I am.
01:36:05.703 --> 01:36:08.047
I'm a crazy cat lady, no, but it's.
01:36:08.047 --> 01:36:10.019
There is a truth to this, though, that you know.
01:36:10.019 --> 01:36:26.020
I did benefit from having these procedures, from having a good medical pathway, of a lot of these procedures being facilitated and it benefiting me, but I do think that the actual therapeutic model of gender affirmation wasn't actually helpful to me.
01:36:26.020 --> 01:36:43.101
I mean, before I ever made the decision transition, I deep dove into the critical narratives of what were the best criticisms of this approach, and that was really what helped me make the decision, because I needed to be sure, absolutely sure, like is this really what I want to do?
01:36:43.101 --> 01:36:45.484
Because this is a one way street.
01:36:45.484 --> 01:36:46.056
What?
01:36:46.077 --> 01:36:48.623
were those criticisms Like what did you read or what did you listen?
01:36:48.644 --> 01:37:20.921
to oh I, yeah, I went into like detransitioner narratives and trans, the trans widow narratives, like partners of of most trans women that, um, you know, were divorced from that, and I just saw like kind of like snippets and snapshots of what life could look like for someone in my situation or like what, basically, like you know what are the different, like ways that life could manifest down the road for me, and I realized like I need to get this solved now and I need to get this ironed out.
01:37:20.921 --> 01:37:35.061
And then the question became is do I want to medicalize my transition or am I happy being sort of in between, with like feminine expression and like lots of open cross-dressing and femininity when it comes to painting my nails and like having longer hair?
01:37:35.061 --> 01:37:54.005
And through that process, again through like taking time and processing each step, I realized like I don't, I don't think being perceived so I was basically perceived as a gay man for about a year before I actually went on HRT and I was like I don't think this is where my target is, like I don't think this is where I want to land.
01:37:54.005 --> 01:38:11.536
I want to go the full step and medicalize my transition and as soon as, kind of, like Brie said, as soon as I started HRT, it clicked for me and I was like this is the way, like this works for me, and and then I just yeah, I went and I'm super happy today.
01:38:11.576 --> 01:38:19.449
But I also recognize like there's always going to be some people that will think I am a man or male, and I need to be okay with this as part of my decision.
01:38:19.449 --> 01:38:30.421
And that's the part of gender affirming therapy that I really despise, because I feel like they say oh, you feel this way, you're a woman inside, and everyone ought to treat you that way, and if they don't, they're in the wrong.
01:38:30.421 --> 01:38:43.305
And that, to me, is setting people up for this problem of being so unhappy when things come out and people don't agree with it, and and also, how does that bleed into the just general like plastic surgery culture is that?
01:38:43.447 --> 01:38:44.235
is that a part of it?
01:38:44.235 --> 01:38:49.536
I used to watch every episode of 902, of dr 902 and oh, and it always had the same storyline.
01:38:49.536 --> 01:38:55.042
This person had a personal problem unrelated to their body that was going to be solved through plastic surgery.
01:38:55.042 --> 01:38:58.356
In the end they were always presented as cured of their problem, whatever it might be.
01:38:58.356 --> 01:39:00.685
They were shy or they couldn't find a boyfriend, or something like that.
01:39:00.685 --> 01:39:09.101
Their career would change and so does that mindset also influence people's gender dysphoria and their desire to trench transition.
01:39:09.101 --> 01:39:20.260
But we can't have these discussions because that runs up against the danger zone of anyone saying that anyone's feelings about their own gender identity aren't anything but totally gender essentialist valid.
01:39:20.260 --> 01:39:24.435
So that's that's the discussion we're having here now, you know.
01:39:24.435 --> 01:39:26.400
And the question is I went and had.
01:39:26.400 --> 01:39:30.798
If I had a big nose and wanted this little small one like, would I really be happy with it?
01:39:30.798 --> 01:39:31.140
You know?
01:39:31.782 --> 01:39:33.445
No, I think that's a good point.
01:39:33.445 --> 01:39:33.886
Go ahead.
01:39:33.886 --> 01:39:35.756
Yeah, thank you.
01:39:35.756 --> 01:39:44.345
I think the big difference is that our culture sort of understands that oftentimes plastic surgery is not the answer to people's problems.
01:39:44.345 --> 01:40:02.606
We can be very honest about that, and I think a big issue with gender affirming care is that we just cannot be honest about it, like you're saying, and so transition at is treated as something that like absolutely will help you, and to say otherwise is total anathema.
01:40:02.847 --> 01:40:25.778
It's gonna get you thrown out of the room, and I think that, more than that as well, there's just this expectation that if you transition like, everyone needs to be fully on board with that and if they're not, they're exercising, yeah they're transferring, and you know that's a detriment to you as a person, to your ability to survive.
01:40:26.079 --> 01:40:28.288
You know that's causing suicides and death.
01:40:28.288 --> 01:40:39.576
And the reality is we're setting trans people up for failure because we're instilling this mentality of like total fragility, where everyone needs to be affirming you, otherwise you're fucked.
01:40:39.576 --> 01:40:40.960
That's just not the case.
01:40:40.960 --> 01:40:45.319
People are so much more resilient than they realize, and so I think that we're.
01:40:45.319 --> 01:40:50.220
You know, brianna, she mentioned that it seems like trans people are in some ways, more miserable than ever.
01:40:50.220 --> 01:40:59.587
I think it's because, you know, we've moved to this perspective where, more and more, we're putting the responsibility on everyone else.
01:40:59.606 --> 01:41:04.222
Yes, yes, external validation yeah yeah, and people are.
01:41:04.243 --> 01:41:07.796
Just they're seeking value in other people's minds.
01:41:07.796 --> 01:41:09.038
I saw a tech talk the other day.
01:41:09.038 --> 01:41:35.622
Someone was saying that, like they get gendered correctly, she her all the time, but they just know in their heads that the other person in their head is really thinking he, him, and I cannot imagine a more toxic way to approach the world where you're engaging in this mind reading and it's not even good enough for someone to refer to you with the right pronouns you need to like know that in their head they got it.
01:41:35.622 --> 01:41:36.384
So a few things.
01:41:36.545 --> 01:41:37.587
I would say so.
01:41:37.587 --> 01:42:00.485
Laura Edwards-Lieper, you're probably familiar with her, so she was part of the team that imported the Dutch model to Boston Children's in 2007, the first clinic ever to open to give pediatric gender transition treatment and so she is a psychologist and in recent years she's become more of a skeptic from within that is concerned about some of these excesses that we're talking about.
01:42:00.485 --> 01:42:03.078
She really believes in very thorough assessments.
01:42:03.078 --> 01:42:09.550
You know spending like 20 hours, all told, speaking with the kid, writing a huge report for the parents, that sort of thing.
01:42:09.550 --> 01:42:17.488
So I asked her for an article I was writing for the New York Post recently about what the future of the trans movement for kids is in the United States.
01:42:17.488 --> 01:42:30.961
And I said you know, if it comes to pass that because of the insurance climate, legal climate, that kids aren't going to be able to access blockers and hormones increasingly if they want them, how is that going to impact all these kids?
01:42:30.961 --> 01:42:32.546
And she said something that totally amazed me.
01:42:32.546 --> 01:42:49.561
She said well, I've worked with a lot of these kids who can't get these meds, either because of the state law or because one or both their parents says no, and eventually they come to terms with it and they just realize they have to wait and my jaw hit the floor because this was something like totally normal to hear, but you're not allowed to say it.
01:42:49.922 --> 01:43:01.524
These kids, you know by and large, will be resilient and this narrative that they will definitely kill themselves bothers me so much and I think this is somebody I spent much of my life suicidal.
01:43:01.524 --> 01:43:02.900
I know about this feeling.
01:43:02.900 --> 01:43:04.742
It is the worst feeling in the world.
01:43:04.742 --> 01:43:08.246
It is a constant drumbeat that you would be better off not existing.
01:43:08.246 --> 01:43:21.663
It is extremely painful but we know from suicide research that talking about it in a simplistic way and discussing a simplistic cause and effect can influence people's suicide and the discourse about this.
01:43:21.704 --> 01:43:25.037
The way that next benedict was discussed, that case was very complicated.
01:43:25.037 --> 01:43:33.485
You know if you listen to the recording in the in the hospital with the cop when x is being interviewed next instigated the fight.
01:43:33.485 --> 01:43:37.500
But also next father was abusive and recently got out of prison or something.
01:43:37.500 --> 01:43:49.862
There was a lot going on in this kid's life, more than just what happened in that bathroom, and for the media and for glad to everyone to capitalize on that and to fundraise off of that was really just totally inexcusable to me.
01:43:49.862 --> 01:43:52.931
And one other thing I wanted to say is that anna hutchinson.
01:43:53.292 --> 01:44:00.345
It was also a psychologist who came from this movement and was part of the gender identity development system, or kids at the nhs in the uk.
01:44:00.345 --> 01:44:05.726
The clinic that started in about 2011 was shut down last year and she became a whistleblower.
01:44:05.726 --> 01:44:15.163
She felt that they were not using the proper guide rails, that they were being reckless, that they were using the ideology as opposed to science, and I spoke with her the other day and she said something that really surprised me.
01:44:15.163 --> 01:44:28.390
She said you know, right now, as we're discussing here, no one is even trying to research a way to properly anticipate whether kids will be permanently gender dysphoric when they're going into this medicalized system or whether they have a permanent trans identity.
01:44:28.390 --> 01:44:30.177
No one's even trying to research this.
01:44:30.177 --> 01:44:36.530
Right and to the contrary, people like Jack Turbin from UCSF and Diane Aronstaff also at institution.
01:44:36.530 --> 01:44:39.820
They published a paper on how to do these assessments according to the WPATH rules.
01:44:39.820 --> 01:44:52.425
The very first thing they say is this is not to determine if the kid is really trans, and I'm so shocked by that but should not be, to put it more clinically, should not be the purpose to assess whether they'll be permanently gender dysphoric.
01:44:52.734 --> 01:44:54.417
And so Dr Hutchinson told me.
01:44:54.417 --> 01:45:01.327
She said because of this, because there is no proper way to predict who will be the Kelly in this institution and who might be, say, me.
01:45:01.327 --> 01:45:03.871
And of course, as you said, who knows?
01:45:03.871 --> 01:45:05.637
Maybe you would have been me in another life.
01:45:05.637 --> 01:45:07.082
But like, is it better or worse?
01:45:07.082 --> 01:45:08.902
These are important questions to ask.
01:45:08.902 --> 01:45:24.645
But Dr Hutchinson told me that she said, absent that system that could accurately predict how these kids will turn out Ultimately, she didn't think that gender transition for kids was ethical, even in a clinical trial, because there's too much risk.
01:45:24.645 --> 01:45:25.287
And I thought that was you know.
01:45:25.287 --> 01:45:28.238
I would be curious to know what you guys think of that position, which is very strong.
01:45:28.238 --> 01:45:34.579
This is coming from somebody who knows the system, so they are very informed call that a radical position.
01:45:34.619 --> 01:45:37.244
Perhaps so I hear what you're saying I hear what you're saying.
01:45:37.426 --> 01:45:39.877
I think that's valid.
01:45:39.877 --> 01:45:58.365
I'm sure if, like, an alternate history existed where my family had let me, you know, like start social transition when I was 16 and didn't care that I was interested in boys and let me express myself, I'm sure I would have survived till I met, you know, made to 18, though I still would have had to have a tremendous amount of plastic surgery and still be too tall.
01:45:58.365 --> 01:46:06.769
This is the part of it and, respectfully, this is why I think you miss and this is why I worry about the political project I think sometimes you're part of.
01:46:06.769 --> 01:46:24.682
So if you look through all of human history, like boys that want to be girls are part of human history through 3,000 years of recorded history and, like we've always existed, we'll always exist and typically society does not treat us very well.
01:46:24.682 --> 01:46:32.685
We are universally a sex working class or like a lower class, that is, like looked down on doing medial labor.
01:46:32.805 --> 01:46:44.802
There's just the history of trans people and I think it's really easy to say stuff like well, you know people will, you know they'll survive till they're 18.
01:46:44.802 --> 01:46:56.405
But the problem is the culture of the political project, like if that was a sacrifice we were truly making and we were really getting those kids help like I might be more amenable to it.
01:46:56.405 --> 01:46:57.408
That's not the gate.
01:46:57.408 --> 01:47:03.984
Like jk rowling is engaged in a political project to dehumanize trans people she just is.
01:47:04.085 --> 01:47:04.787
She didn't used to.
01:47:04.947 --> 01:47:13.649
I listened to the witch trials and she wasn't them, but she is now absolutely radicalized and I know firsthand how being a cult figure in one of these identity cults will radicalize.
01:47:13.670 --> 01:47:18.662
And there was that person who was like a referee for some little sports league in the middle nowhere in england.
01:47:18.662 --> 01:47:21.027
She just sent all the theories all over the.
01:47:21.167 --> 01:47:27.320
It's insane, what for sure my point is like I feel like the.
01:47:27.320 --> 01:47:42.782
I feel like it's actually very similar to israel, palestine, in the sense that the victim abuser order is being switched here by a political project, because it's like trans people, like historically do not have political power.
01:47:43.243 --> 01:47:46.997
Trans people, historically are arguing that in the supreme court right now.
01:47:46.997 --> 01:48:02.347
That is a key argument about whether they count as a quasi suspect class, like women as a women are count as quasi suspects class, which means that if there's a law that discriminates against them, it's a much higher bar to cross to say whether or not it is a valid form of criticism.
01:48:02.347 --> 01:48:06.765
So that is up for debate very much in the highest court of the land right now.
01:48:07.114 --> 01:48:09.382
Yeah Well, I wish they'd been smarter about the case.
01:48:11.376 --> 01:48:12.096
I don't see myself.
01:48:12.096 --> 01:48:21.492
I would hate for people to think and many people do, but that I'm a part of a political project and then I'm, and I'm arguing on behalf of dr hodgson or dr laura edward leaper.
01:48:21.492 --> 01:48:36.824
You know, I do make certain editorial decisions about which voices to highlight and which I don't think are no deserve the light of day perhaps, but it is not my role to argue those positions myself, you know, but but to spotlight them, I think that it look?
01:48:37.265 --> 01:48:37.667
I wouldn't.
01:48:37.667 --> 01:48:38.813
I consider you a friend.
01:48:38.813 --> 01:49:06.389
I love talking to you, I respect your work, I do think you have a point of view and I think a sophisticated media consumer can read your work and like the person you just uh chose like you wrote an article of me and it is a dissenting voice and then you chose to put the person you just mentioned that said those kids will survive if you make them wait till 18, a decade, like three paragraphs highlighting them at the end, and to me that reads as this is my point of view, this is the conclusion the reader should draw.
01:49:06.389 --> 01:49:08.617
That's fine, it's, it's honest journalism.
01:49:08.617 --> 01:49:12.207
I'm just saying I do think you have a point of view and it comes across in your work.
01:49:12.395 --> 01:49:57.337
Yeah, I hear you you know, but I I do try to temper it the best I can yeah, I think, yeah, I, I was just gonna say like, I mean, I think everyone has a point of view, but when it comes to ben benjamin's work, like I find it's so balanced, and actually it's remarkably balanced to me because I'm like I see you taking flack for gendering you know, I guess correct gendering or whatever of trans people, but like people will come at you and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I kind of enjoy it a little bit when they go crazy, because I don't care and I just mute those threads and I'll be like let's have some trouble and I'll just say it is unkind to misgender, transgender people yeah and it'll get like half a million views and like 1200 angry comments and I'm just like going about my day.
01:49:57.396 --> 01:50:17.465
I don't, I don't hear it, and because I also don't care, and if you say we're gonna, we're gonna unfollow and block you, and I'd go and block a lot of them because you people are just annoying, I mean, if nothing else, yeah, and I really disagree because and I I agree with that, since that is my sincere to believe that it is unkind for me to call any of you men for one thing would require so much cognitive dissonance.
01:50:17.465 --> 01:50:21.622
I'm looking at you and like men, no, you know that's ridiculous.
01:50:21.975 --> 01:50:30.042
It's so wild to me how it flipped from one it was like 180, because it used to be oh, you're not allowed to misgender a trans person, like on the platforms.
01:50:30.042 --> 01:50:31.360
And now it's the other way.
01:50:31.654 --> 01:50:34.305
And it's like this language policing pendulum.
01:50:34.305 --> 01:50:42.444
Well, what they're saying is that if I call any of you she, I am making a political statement about your sex.
01:50:42.444 --> 01:50:47.038
Therefore, you have a right to be in the following single sex spaces and that is a threat to women.
01:50:47.038 --> 01:50:49.123
That's the extension of that argument.
01:50:49.364 --> 01:50:51.356
I don't agree with it that slippery slope.
01:50:51.356 --> 01:50:58.354
And and I think that that's when you hear people like veronica ivy or, recently, zoe zephyr saying I am a biological women, that's a political.
01:50:58.354 --> 01:51:01.057
Hear people like Veronica Ivy or, recently, zoe Zephyr saying I am a biological woman, that's a political argument.
01:51:01.057 --> 01:51:22.841
That is saying I am totally inflexible about the argument whether I have a right to be in these single sex spaces and so and I think that that causes a radical reaction from the TERFs Like oh yeah, we're going to start calling you he because we don't think you belong there, and that you can't have a nuanced discussion about like what's the threat if you're both just peeing like there's stalls or other people around?
01:51:22.841 --> 01:51:29.185
Like is there any evidence of these horrible attacks that you're discussing happening like or is this just a bogeyman?
01:51:29.185 --> 01:51:29.586
You know?
01:51:30.127 --> 01:51:36.403
do you have any place to say that trans women are biologically women instead of biologically female?
01:51:36.403 --> 01:51:46.765
Just in the sense that you know we are born with the dysphoria that makes us feel like we are women, so not to say like we're female, but just being born with that dysphoria biologically.
01:51:46.765 --> 01:51:49.539
That's an interesting way of putting it I.
01:51:49.940 --> 01:51:55.317
I think we need languages, I was saying earlier just to be clear of what sex versus gender is.
01:51:55.317 --> 01:52:01.725
So what I think I'm hearing you say is the way I would put it is is that's your gender and your sex is different, and that's part of the problem.
01:52:01.725 --> 01:52:03.899
That tension is what causes the dysphoria.
01:52:03.899 --> 01:52:12.454
And then the HRT or or just cross-sex hormones or whatever you're going to put it, that's to work against and to reconcile that conflict.
01:52:12.454 --> 01:52:20.369
So to me it's illogical to say that the sex is different, because then you wouldn't need all that treatment, you wouldn't have to have had all this blasphemy, you just would have been a woman.
01:52:21.445 --> 01:52:31.172
I think, ian Kelly, I know you can agree with me on this you know the grossness of the way that TERFs and gender criticals talk about my body.
01:52:31.172 --> 01:52:32.994
It is beyond anything.
01:52:32.994 --> 01:52:37.820
Any man that found out I was trans has ever spoken to me before.
01:52:37.820 --> 01:52:40.011
Like Kelly, I've seen them do this to you.
01:52:40.011 --> 01:52:44.355
Like, do thread hundreds of comments talking about if you have a vagina or not.
01:52:44.355 --> 01:52:54.336
Yeah, I think a really good analog would be like what if someone had breast cancer, had reconstructive surgery and like someone, like going with, like going with them and going like well, do you really have breasts?
01:52:54.336 --> 01:52:56.886
If you really call an implant a breast, you had your.
01:52:56.886 --> 01:52:59.153
You know you had all your breast tissue removed.
01:52:59.153 --> 01:53:00.395
Are you really a woman?
01:53:00.395 --> 01:53:19.088
I mean, it's like look, I understand that this is something surgically created, but it's really none of your business and there's no need to say stuff like this, like this is really gross to the argument it is my business if, if this person is naked in front of me and has a penis, that's fair so what do you say to that?
01:53:19.649 --> 01:53:23.097
well, I don't think any cis woman should ever see a penis in a locker room.
01:53:23.097 --> 01:53:24.389
That is beyond like.
01:53:24.389 --> 01:53:28.885
The fact that that's even on a table shows how crazy the ideology has gotten.
01:53:28.885 --> 01:53:38.627
When I transitioned 20 years ago, you never would have found any trans woman that ever, ever, ever would have even been in that space pre-op in the first place.
01:53:38.627 --> 01:53:46.189
So the fact that that's on the table today just shows how entitled and male-coded this version of activism is like.
01:53:46.189 --> 01:53:47.773
I don't identify with it at all.
01:53:47.773 --> 01:53:48.895
I'm post-op.
01:53:48.895 --> 01:53:55.414
I don't even use like locker rooms and it's like is that that I'm like afraid or like for political reasons?
01:53:55.414 --> 01:53:57.703
I just got that still like 12 year old.
01:53:57.703 --> 01:53:58.605
Shame about my body.
01:53:58.626 --> 01:54:00.690
Do you feel like maybe you still don't belong?
01:54:00.690 --> 01:54:02.234
Is that part of like that?
01:54:02.314 --> 01:54:09.849
no, it's just like I didn't like being around boys when I was naked because I felt such shame, and that's just never changed right.
01:54:09.849 --> 01:54:14.676
So, um, I just shower at home and skip the whole thing, if that makes sense to your point.
01:54:14.716 --> 01:54:16.202
So I've had testicular cancer.
01:54:16.202 --> 01:54:18.389
So you know, one of them is a prosthesis.
01:54:18.389 --> 01:54:22.740
So you know, am I half a man, you know right a hundred percent.
01:54:22.841 --> 01:55:04.175
It's a little ridiculous, but I think what you're getting at about this, like identity and what makes someone a man or a woman I mean, one of the arguments from the trans rights side is that the pronouns and the dress and the identity and what's system, that the pronouns are what legitimize participating in sports, or it's because everyone's operating on this kind of like social version of gender, which is, I think, kind of ridiculous.
01:55:04.175 --> 01:55:10.671
And so I think we just need to get outside of that paradigm and say, like, just describe things accurately.
01:55:10.671 --> 01:55:13.916
Like, like you're saying, trans women, they prefer to be gendered.
01:55:13.996 --> 01:55:15.399
She and also trans women are.
01:55:15.399 --> 01:55:18.010
They're a different kind of a woman, and that's okay.
01:55:18.010 --> 01:55:19.154
That's reality.
01:55:19.154 --> 01:55:26.916
Trans women are like well, yes, but like in a different way, and it's okay to discuss that way is relevant for some things like sports, like.
01:55:27.317 --> 01:55:29.047
There's a different biology here.
01:55:29.047 --> 01:55:34.913
So I mean earlier we talked about like, should gender hormones be more gatekept?
01:55:34.913 --> 01:55:43.377
I think fundamentally all of this, so many of these conversations that come down to who is bearing the responsibility of this decision, who is it affecting?
01:55:43.505 --> 01:55:58.430
Well, sometimes in a court of law if they're sued that will be reconciled, that will be decided so and there are a lot of lawsuits against you know, detransitioner lawsuits about two dozen, and they're not all kids, some of them, the oldest one is 29.
01:55:59.632 --> 01:56:14.774
Here's the thing I think doctors, if they are experiencing these lawsuits, suddenly that's a really big incentive for the medical professionals to keep a lot more, because if they're going to be held responsible, they don't want to mess up right.
01:56:14.774 --> 01:56:27.234
And so I think that, like, if you're in a world where the trans person, the person wanting to transition, holds all the responsibility for taking those hormones, then I think the bar for accessing those hormones should be really low.
01:56:27.234 --> 01:56:37.787
Um, but I also think that, like you, as a person who might want to transition, there's a reason why you might want to speak to a doctor, and it's because you care about getting a good outcome, at least in theory.
01:56:37.787 --> 01:56:47.417
And so you should want that gatekeeping to make sure that you're the right candidate for hormones, and you should want to, you know, not impose upon.
01:56:47.417 --> 01:57:04.161
You shouldn't want to, like, flash a penis in a locker room because you're entering someone else's space, and all of this, for me, just comes down to you should bear the responsibility of things and not impose that outcome on other people, in whatever scenario.
01:57:04.926 --> 01:57:06.051
Taff, let's be honest.
01:57:06.051 --> 01:57:12.185
This version of the trans community is allergic to any kind of personal responsibility or agency.
01:57:12.185 --> 01:57:14.149
It's exactly as you said.
01:57:14.149 --> 01:57:20.832
The culture has moved a hundred percent away from like we can't even get trans gals in the news train, like you know.
01:57:20.832 --> 01:57:28.014
Like like it's a hundred percent like let's make it so society will recognize all this stuff and no agency on the person itself.
01:57:28.014 --> 01:57:29.296
It is I.
01:57:29.296 --> 01:57:31.710
I don't know how we would change that culture.
01:57:31.710 --> 01:57:34.145
I I legitimately don't brie.
01:57:34.166 --> 01:57:35.488
This is like that slogan.
01:57:35.488 --> 01:57:37.234
You don't need dysphoria to be trans.
01:57:37.234 --> 01:57:41.256
Yes, which is the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life.
01:57:41.275 --> 01:57:52.315
Let me play devil's advocate, because I hear people pushing back against you, brown a lot to saying like what you're doing is you're policing trans identity so that only you would get in the door, and that that's not fair.
01:57:52.315 --> 01:58:01.895
There's so many people who are somewhere in the middle who just want to be kind of a woman, a kind of a man or the non-binary, and they're going to have breast implants but not take HRT.
01:58:01.895 --> 01:58:04.891
So you know what's wrong with that.
01:58:04.891 --> 01:58:08.625
Essentially, why shouldn't they be allowed to make those choices for themselves?
01:58:08.625 --> 01:58:09.807
Why do they have to pass?
01:58:10.128 --> 01:58:16.466
I'm really glad you asked this question, yeah yeah, that's a great question, yeah I'm not saying this is my opinion, but I hear this a lot.
01:58:16.686 --> 01:58:21.681
It's fine, I've thought about this so much and I think they're like.
01:58:21.681 --> 01:58:32.716
My understanding of trans has like radically expanded in the last two years and I think there are a lot of different gateways to being trans and I don't think we're all the same thing.
01:58:32.716 --> 01:58:42.960
I think the thing that gender identity dysphoria picked up in on the 80s that I have is a super, super specific kind of gateway to being trans.
01:58:42.960 --> 01:58:44.470
That's kind of the old school.
01:58:44.530 --> 01:58:47.253
Yeah, these existed through all of human history.
01:58:47.253 --> 01:58:49.011
Very rare like mostly natal males.
01:58:49.091 --> 01:58:51.291
About right Point one percent.
01:58:51.291 --> 01:59:03.190
Kelly, as best as I can tell from knowing you, you're the exact same thing as I am and we just are this hyper rare interested in boys understanding this at a really young age.
01:59:03.190 --> 01:59:12.155
Like, like thing that exists and I think it is expanded and I don't have a problem with the way it's expanded.
01:59:12.155 --> 01:59:16.032
Like I understand that there are some non-binary people that are going to exist.
01:59:16.032 --> 01:59:24.166
I understand there are some like more fetishistic cross-dressers that are going to want to experiment with their public presentation in real life.
01:59:24.166 --> 01:59:31.797
That's fine, but to me the public policy concern is should insurance pay for that stuff?
01:59:31.797 --> 01:59:34.587
Should you have access to women's spaces?
01:59:34.587 --> 01:59:36.573
Like, what are your legal rights?
01:59:36.774 --> 01:59:47.854
that's when it affects other people paying for it or you know, actually they're feeling in those situations, should they have the freedom to do it?
01:59:48.034 --> 01:59:49.356
Hell yeah, this is America.
01:59:49.356 --> 01:59:50.238
I love freedom.
01:59:50.238 --> 02:00:01.631
That's great, but I think like they are on a fundamentally different pathway and have a fundamentally different problem than I do, these people with autism particularly.
02:00:01.631 --> 02:00:25.777
I've looked so deeply into the trans women with autism and the way they're different than what I have is, and there's some pertinent public policy discussions there, so maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, but my jam is public policy and I think it has to start with protecting the people that need it the most, which are the ones that have a medical case of this.
02:00:25.777 --> 02:00:27.707
We have to transition.
02:00:27.707 --> 02:00:29.351
We have to move on with life.
02:00:29.351 --> 02:00:31.355
This is not a social project.
02:00:31.355 --> 02:00:34.829
It is literally the oldest version of this that we can identify does.
02:00:34.829 --> 02:00:36.493
Does that argument make sense to you?
02:00:37.135 --> 02:00:49.091
yeah but do you not think that kind of contributes to the problem that we were talking about a little bit earlier, just when it comes to like who actually is trans, because I don't know if we would call these people trans or I don't know.
02:00:49.110 --> 02:01:00.814
I guess they go by non-binary now but it I would like to think of specifically in the cases of trans women like you and me, brie, who are attracted to men only Cause I know Skye and Taff are bisexual.
02:01:00.814 --> 02:01:05.954
I believe you know, when it comes to us, who are straight oh, you're straight.
02:01:05.954 --> 02:01:18.159
Okay, sorry I, but it's like I would think a real way to know if someone's trans, at least how it would probably be back in the day, especially when you were transitioning, brie would be that oh, do you have the desire to have bottom surgery?
02:01:18.159 --> 02:01:21.367
Do you feel this work about what's in your legs?
02:01:21.367 --> 02:01:28.109
And nowadays the community is saying that, like you, don't have to have dysphoria about that to be considered trans, and I think it's created a lot of issues.
02:01:28.109 --> 02:01:41.123
Not that I have any issues with trans people that have no issues with their genitalia, but I I do think it means it's created a lot of issues in society and it means they're very different from who you and me are it's something different and I'm not judging it.
02:01:41.204 --> 02:01:42.226
It's just something different.
02:01:42.226 --> 02:01:46.706
I never had a second of doubt that that's something I wanted, and you know it's.
02:01:46.706 --> 02:01:54.417
I think it's fine for different subtypes to come up, but this is where we need an honest discussion and an honest public policy, if that makes sense.
02:01:55.800 --> 02:02:06.195
Yeah, no, I agree with you on that.
02:02:06.195 --> 02:02:21.655
I think a huge way to confirm that like they wouldn't have, like you know, regrets in the future, especially if they are only male attracted, is to know if they have dysphoria with, with their genitalia Cause if they don't, I feel like that leaves a lot of room open for them to have regrets in the future.
02:02:22.546 --> 02:02:27.387
These are the kinds of questions that are not being asked on purpose by the establishment.
02:02:27.387 --> 02:02:37.497
They're ruling that out, and I find that very surprising, because it would make perfect sense to do just what you're saying it makes too much sense.
02:02:37.856 --> 02:02:43.515
That's the problem all right, I want to get you a few more spicy uh questions here.
02:02:43.515 --> 02:02:45.622
I want to make a little drama here, all right?
02:02:45.622 --> 02:02:47.747
All right, so I want to talk.
02:02:47.747 --> 02:02:56.239
One of the most embarrassing things I've ever seen on Twitter was the project to smear you as a chaser.
02:02:56.239 --> 02:02:57.167
Does it?
02:02:57.167 --> 02:03:00.877
I guess I just wanted to know, like there was never, you were a gay man, right?
02:03:00.877 --> 02:03:04.655
Anyone that knows you in the hangout like you're 100% gay.
02:03:06.826 --> 02:03:13.219
To get you denigrated and personally attacked like you're, like this is a sexual thing and transplant.
02:03:13.219 --> 02:03:15.393
I've always wanted to ask you how did that feel?
02:03:15.393 --> 02:03:20.457
That must have really hurt a lot to have your integrity attacked like that.
02:03:20.784 --> 02:03:22.990
So what happened was Alejandro Caraballo.
02:03:22.990 --> 02:03:24.957
This is two years ago, about right now.
02:03:24.957 --> 02:03:25.627
If you recall.
02:03:25.627 --> 02:03:29.856
There was that series that came out in Reuters about pediatric gender care for kids.
02:03:29.856 --> 02:03:32.380
I thought the series was very good that came out in Reuters about pediatric gender care for kids.
02:03:32.380 --> 02:03:42.690
I thought the series was very good and there was one in particular that was about largely Kenan Ross McKinnon's research at York university about detransitioning, and I found the article really interesting because it sounded like something you should really explore.
02:03:42.690 --> 02:03:45.333
And this was at a time when I was really new to this topic myself.
02:03:45.333 --> 02:03:51.372
So I went on Twitter and just said gee, you know, at the time I had like 12,000 followers, so it's kind of a bigger account.
02:03:51.372 --> 02:03:54.338
But I said it would be good to encourage this kind of research.
02:03:54.524 --> 02:03:57.414
And Alejandro Carballo found me and just started railing on me.
02:03:57.414 --> 02:04:01.791
I just made up all this stuff about what I was supposedly saying and it was just insane.
02:04:01.791 --> 02:04:12.176
She just sicked all the furies on me and one of the things that she said was like oh, and he's probably a chaser which you know, people don't know that you know, the old words was tranny.
02:04:12.176 --> 02:04:13.377
Chaser was caught out.
02:04:13.377 --> 02:04:14.899
The first word which not to say anymore.
02:04:14.899 --> 02:04:19.550
So and that was just an absurd suggestion.
02:04:19.569 --> 02:04:23.465
But there was this really big blow up where Ari and I were upset with one another.
02:04:23.465 --> 02:04:27.556
And I was upset with her because she, as I said I have cancer.
02:04:27.556 --> 02:04:54.811
I said I have cancer, and she was really mad about this thing that I read in the Washington Post, where I had said that it was a real shame that the American Psychiatric Association was not really analyzing and discussing the nuances of the science of this issue and the way that they once had, 50 years prior about homosexuality, that it really just, you know, internal debate and discussion was how they delisted homosexuality from the dsm in 1973 and that kind of debate is not happening now about these trans issues.
02:04:54.811 --> 02:05:05.775
So ari was getting really mad at me about having written that and she started listing these things like there were more hypothetical examples of why don't we take away your, your this, why don't we take away your chemotherapy?
02:05:05.936 --> 02:05:31.212
And I I had just had a cat scan, like two weeks prior, and I was really terrified that it was going to have recurrence and my life was going to be just like wrecked, and so I was very sensitive at the time and I blew up at Ari and she took advantage of this and presented this tweet that gave the false impression by squishing two things I had said together that I was a deranged pervert who was furious with her because she would not wasn't attracted to me.
02:05:31.212 --> 02:05:40.979
Oh my God, this is so underhanded and I'm really frankly shocked, because Ari is a public representative of media matters.
02:05:40.979 --> 02:05:43.484
When she tweets, she represents them Absolutely.
02:05:43.484 --> 02:05:49.814
There is no difference between those two entities and for her to behave that way in public was totally shocking.
02:05:50.485 --> 02:05:51.952
She's done the same thing to me.
02:05:51.952 --> 02:05:54.824
She took a tweet I made to this California.
02:05:55.086 --> 02:05:56.211
She has files in every one.
02:05:56.211 --> 02:05:58.829
It's for the ready.
02:05:58.829 --> 02:06:02.024
They keep them on file in case they need to use it 100%.
02:06:02.405 --> 02:06:04.413
But what I was going to say is for Ari and me.
02:06:04.413 --> 02:06:22.780
I put out a tweet talking about that case in California which is basically saying that if teachers find out that a parent, that child, is trans, that they can't socially transition, that hold on, let me finish that child at school secretly, like behind their back, and they need to alert the parents.
02:06:22.780 --> 02:06:30.408
Now I thought really carefully about this and I understand I went through most of my adolescence terrified that I was going to get outed.
02:06:30.408 --> 02:06:39.345
So I very much understand that and considering the fact that my family disowned me the day I came out like it does not surprise me at all.
02:06:39.345 --> 02:06:41.774
Like my worries back then were well-founded.
02:06:41.774 --> 02:06:42.796
So I understand that.
02:06:43.359 --> 02:06:52.551
But I feel very strongly that you cannot say both ways that socially transitioning children at school is innocuous and this is a very dangerous thing.
02:06:52.551 --> 02:07:00.076
Where people need health care from, it's either got to be one or the other and after a lot of thought about this, I do think that parents deserve to know.
02:07:00.076 --> 02:07:08.250
So in that situation you have guidance counselors ready to call CPS if that child is abused Like, those kids need help.
02:07:08.250 --> 02:07:16.069
That's my position and this is a nuanced, nuanced, thoughtful position that I've spent a lot of time thinking of wait already do?
02:07:16.069 --> 02:07:30.297
She took that first paragraph talking out like the parents need to be notified, and left out all the context of it and destroyed my reputation with a certain crowd, which was a fundamental exercise in dishonesty.
02:07:30.297 --> 02:07:44.297
And this is my problem with a lot of the trans public figures that they they're exactly as extremist as Gamergate or, you know, free Palestine or a lot of these other like social media cults that have risen up.
02:07:44.297 --> 02:07:49.077
It is not a force that's in the interest of pursuing truth, if that makes sense.
02:07:49.965 --> 02:07:50.207
Absolutely.
02:07:50.207 --> 02:07:53.908
It's vile political ideology that's ultimately self-serving.
02:07:53.908 --> 02:08:00.208
It supports an activist class that benefits from ratcheting up the temperature of the conversation.
02:08:00.208 --> 02:08:03.396
The end result is that we're further away from the truth.
02:08:03.396 --> 02:08:08.115
Trans people end up hurt and we end up pissing off a lot of people.
02:08:08.155 --> 02:08:26.230
Alienate people a lot of people and it's all to line the pockets of these activists who are helping us, and it's very tragic to me that people like they implicitly believe that you know, trans people need these people to survive and without them we're just going to be thrown to the wolves.
02:08:26.712 --> 02:08:48.259
I don't think people realize just how toxic and destructive this whole environment I think it caters to that vision of what gender ideology wants at the end of the day, which is to replace biological sex and law with gender identity, and it's an illusion, really, because it's never going to be tenable in actual real life.
02:08:48.259 --> 02:08:52.198
And this is where they'll play to that, that script.
02:08:52.198 --> 02:08:57.993
That's what that whole, you know, that whole sphere of trans activism does is.
02:08:57.993 --> 02:09:01.908
It plays to that script and it promises this and it's like look where it's gotten us.
02:09:01.908 --> 02:09:03.472
Trump is now elected.
02:09:03.472 --> 02:09:10.824
There's so much backlash and it's only going to get worse as long as this vision is being pushed this is a good thing like brianna.
02:09:10.885 --> 02:09:24.916
I think it's important for people to recognize that that law and these policies in schools in California is not a kid quietly telling their social study teacher that they think they may be trans If the kid socially transitions with a new name and a pronoun?
02:09:24.916 --> 02:09:37.118
That's what the real consideration is, and I was discussing with somebody just in my own personal life who's involved with the school, and what this person said is we, as the school, are in partnership with raising these kids.
02:09:37.118 --> 02:10:00.652
We have to have an open dialogue with these kids and this is something that really crosses a certain Rubicon where we have to inform them, especially if we're talking about kids are suicidal and there are uniform policies in place to protect kids against abuse at home, so you don't need a specific policy necessarily to protect against that, because there's already such a thing as mandatory reporting.
02:10:00.652 --> 02:10:17.130
So, and just to go back to the ari situation to answer your question, the onslaught that I received as a result of her mischaracterizing me in public was so wholly damaging to me personally.
02:10:17.229 --> 02:10:19.695
The stress that I went through I it was.
02:10:19.695 --> 02:10:31.992
People ask me like, what's it like when you get dragged on twitter like this there, and I almost don't want to tell people this like, because it just gives them fuel to say, oh, you really can't upset him and ruin his day, but it's like it's an out-of-body experience.
02:10:31.992 --> 02:10:35.095
I really often don't even feel I'm within the room.
02:10:35.095 --> 02:10:43.073
It is so surreal to have that many people trying to ruin your life and to ruin your job and to try to get people to not work with you and that sort of thing.
02:10:43.073 --> 02:10:57.536
So, yes, ari, you really messed up a good period of my life very successfully through unbelievable dishonesty, and for that reason, though, I I'm not ashamed of anything.
02:10:57.536 --> 02:11:02.730
I didn't do anything wrong, except for lose my temper in a situation.
02:11:02.730 --> 02:11:10.029
It was very, very valid, considering that she had brought up my own health history, especially in a time I was really vulnerable about that.
02:11:11.051 --> 02:11:14.056
And then you say it's unkind to misgender trans people.
02:11:14.217 --> 02:11:14.939
Like how do you?
02:11:15.145 --> 02:11:21.551
how do you balance that, that's amazing to me that you can still I don't know not take the backlash position.
02:11:21.685 --> 02:11:23.930
Yeah, luckily I don't.
02:11:23.930 --> 02:11:25.034
Really I don't think personally.
02:11:25.034 --> 02:11:45.216
You know I made a mistake in losing my temper with her, but other than that, you know I know my side of the street is clean and I I respect ari's right to be a woman and that sort of thing and and you know I have absolutely nothing against that whatsoever, but I don't respect the way that she comports herself this is a bigger problem, don't you think that trans people have with the media?
02:11:45.355 --> 02:11:46.405
because look at the way?
02:11:46.405 --> 02:11:53.259
Um, what's the woman that wrote the gender clinic story, emily uh Blaslon Blaslon for the New York times?
02:11:53.685 --> 02:11:55.673
the way we treated her the meat grinder.
02:11:55.673 --> 02:11:56.850
That was a great story.
02:11:56.850 --> 02:11:58.430
It was a fantastic story.
02:11:58.685 --> 02:11:59.951
Very sympathetic to her.
02:11:59.951 --> 02:12:02.552
We were wildly abusive to her.
02:12:02.552 --> 02:12:06.113
I have not seen her write anything about trans people since.
02:12:06.113 --> 02:12:07.577
Like is there?
02:12:07.577 --> 02:12:10.052
I mean I'm asking you if you can share.
02:12:10.052 --> 02:12:20.127
Like is there a reluctance of legitimate reporters like you to touch these issues 100%?
02:12:20.448 --> 02:12:24.507
There is terror in journalists and there's terror in editors and those terror.
02:12:24.507 --> 02:12:26.836
There are different sort of motivations.
02:12:26.836 --> 02:12:30.912
Journalists don't want to have their reputation run through the mud.
02:12:30.912 --> 02:12:40.505
Once you step over that line and you say anything slightly critical, or perceived to be critical, about gender medicine, you get a page on Andrea James' website.
02:12:40.505 --> 02:12:47.514
So she has this hate website and there are pages of everyone who's ever done anything wrong About the gender world.
02:12:47.514 --> 02:12:52.216
And if you're really bad, you get this ghoulish cartoon of your face.
02:12:52.216 --> 02:12:58.025
I haven't hit that level, but she calls everyone into anti-trans activists and no one knows for sure.
02:12:58.105 --> 02:13:08.225
There are theories which I don't want to say out loud about why this is, but she has somehow effectively manipulated the Google algorithm so that those pages are very high on your Google search for your name.
02:13:08.225 --> 02:13:12.993
So we're talking about professionals who work in media, or psychologists media psychologists you know who are parents.
02:13:12.993 --> 02:13:18.650
I I had a person tell me that that page about them they're a professor is very concerning.
02:13:18.650 --> 02:13:28.667
Um for schools, like if they were applying to, like a private school for their kids or like their, you know, parents, the the parents of their kids friends might look them up and think that they're evil.
02:13:28.667 --> 02:13:32.934
There is an entire system out there to terrify and I was really.
02:13:32.934 --> 02:13:45.259
Somebody recently criticized me for being hyperbolic about this, describing as a cabal, but I'm sorry, but it is the reason we, that people like me, are few and far between, is because they're terrified of losing their jobs.
02:13:45.259 --> 02:13:47.246
They're terrified of the reputation being dragged to the mud.
02:13:47.246 --> 02:13:52.512
They don't have the personal strength to stand there and to be just absolutely destroyed online.
02:13:52.934 --> 02:14:02.826
I grew up under the tyranny of a household bully To have somebody who spent their entire time around me to tell me that I was worthless and should disappear and never be heard from.
02:14:02.826 --> 02:14:06.055
I barely spoke at home as a child, unless I was alone with my mother.
02:14:06.055 --> 02:14:07.587
I did not speak as a child.
02:14:07.587 --> 02:14:18.364
So to go through that kind of an upbringing, to survive it similar to, I think, to what you're feeling about your own gender identity you have to develop this core sense of strength.
02:14:18.706 --> 02:14:27.975
I know who I am and I know what those people say about me is wrong and think a lot of people, like you know my brothers, will sort of beat on me and be like we're just, this is for your own good.
02:14:27.975 --> 02:14:32.851
Like we're, we're building you out to be tough and in a way they were right, but, like, thanks a lot.
02:14:32.851 --> 02:14:40.751
It's not the best, yeah, but like I can take it in a way that a lot of people just can't, um, so it's, it's.
02:14:40.751 --> 02:14:47.189
It creates this enormous people like ari and and alejandro carbaya who attack us so brutally in public.
02:14:47.189 --> 02:14:51.034
It creates a very, very effective chilling effect.
02:14:51.235 --> 02:15:09.367
They're very powerful, um, and they've been kind of confounded that they haven't been able to scare me off so but I don't want to sit there and say I'm running from a reactionary position where, like, I'm getting revenge on something them it's more than like I will keep doing what I'm doing, regardless of what you guys try to do.
02:15:09.606 --> 02:15:13.447
I think you've been remarkably measured, given the abuse that you've gotten.
02:15:13.447 --> 02:15:13.908
Um.
02:15:13.908 --> 02:15:17.395
So I have a couple more questions I want to ask you before we go.
02:15:17.395 --> 02:15:21.511
Uh, what do you, as a gay man, make of this lgb?
02:15:21.511 --> 02:15:23.854
Uh, drop the t movement.
02:15:23.854 --> 02:15:27.989
Do you consider trans women like us part of the lgbt?
02:15:27.989 --> 02:15:32.000
Are you an lgb kind of guy or an lgbt kind of guy?
02:15:32.000 --> 02:15:32.381
I mean?
02:15:32.461 --> 02:15:32.801
it is.
02:15:32.801 --> 02:15:42.471
It is sort of curious that we're all kind of thrown together in a basket because our paths towards getting to be a sexual and gender minority is another way of putting it are quite different.
02:15:42.471 --> 02:15:50.716
So, um it, in a way it's sort of it's sort of odd bedfellows, but in other ways it makes sense to group us together.
02:15:50.716 --> 02:16:10.073
So I think that the people um, I'm forgetting the names of their organizations like justine I can't remember her last name certain people who don't, who have these non-profits that do want to drop the t, I think they're definitely representative of that reactionary effect of the extremism on the other side and it's a shame that we can't all get along.
02:16:11.055 --> 02:16:32.289
But at the same time, I think what I hear from a lot of lesbians in particular is they're really concerned about the way that the lesbian community used to be is being degraded slowly and there's and divided, and this idea that you can't be a lesbian, you have to push lesbian more, you have to be a man, that they're really sad to see what they thought is their community dissipate.
02:16:32.289 --> 02:16:33.070
I think it's very different.
02:16:33.070 --> 02:16:42.590
The gay male community hasn't really changed that much, although I do see a lot more younger guys sort of at least experimenting with sort of great effeminate.
02:16:42.590 --> 02:16:45.220
You know being very feminine and wearing makeup, that kind of thing.
02:16:45.220 --> 02:16:56.398
But I think it's not as much and I can't comment as sort of expertly on the lesbian community necessarily so it sounds like a very weak endorsement of lgbt to me I guess.
02:16:56.478 --> 02:17:10.530
I guess you could put it that way, because I don't necessarily know that our quote-unquote communities naturally overlap as much as you might think so I mean, just because we're the same age, you know what it used to be, ben, like I mean like I go to a really gay gym.
02:17:10.549 --> 02:17:11.772
There's nothing but gay guys there.
02:17:11.772 --> 02:17:12.995
I see gay guys everywhere.
02:17:12.995 --> 02:17:19.730
So just in my everyday perambulating, I don't necessarily overlap with trans people or lesbians, that much.
02:17:19.730 --> 02:17:22.996
So, um, I it's just.
02:17:22.996 --> 02:17:26.475
That's just my own vision in terms of like what I see from day to day.
02:17:26.475 --> 02:17:34.556
You know, I'd have to sort of like make more of an effort to reach out, to interact with the other letters and the alphabet people, as Chappelle calls us.
02:17:37.565 --> 02:17:47.960
I will also say I understand this impulse, because there's the same thing within the trans community where trans people are like do I really have all that much in common with non-binary people?
02:17:49.584 --> 02:17:50.728
Or what about asexuals?
02:17:50.728 --> 02:17:52.314
You know, we're asexuals.
02:17:52.585 --> 02:17:58.147
But yeah, I mean just, you know, focusing on people who have a gender identity that is like slightly different from ours.
02:17:58.147 --> 02:17:59.671
Like you know, I identify as woman.
02:17:59.671 --> 02:18:01.475
They don't identify as a woman.
02:18:01.475 --> 02:18:10.135
It seems like fairly close and yet I understand that like in some ways there's like a gulf of difference between us and sometimes that's really relevant.
02:18:10.135 --> 02:18:27.354
So I definitely get the desire to be like you know, I frankly I think lgbt makes sense to group together, um, but I understand how there there are these major differences it's probably that we're seen as others by other people, and so we're all sort of back together because we're stigmatized.
02:18:27.415 --> 02:18:36.097
I think that's what we all have in common, for one thing and also because it's all, it fundamentally relates to expectations about your gender, right?
02:18:36.097 --> 02:18:51.536
So there's an expectation that, like, if your gender, you know, or if your sex is male, that you are attracted to women and that you wear men's clothes and that you, you know, don't have breasts and whatnot, but we break that expectation just in different ways, right?
02:18:51.536 --> 02:19:09.620
And so I think it's very important that people not be pigeonholed according to their natal sex, fundamentally forced into a certain rut in life, and so for me, that's the connection, but I understand that those behaviors are different, and so it's worth you know, I grew up in the 80s.
02:19:09.680 --> 02:19:12.872
My mother wouldn't allow me to get a lavender t-shirt when I was six years old.
02:19:12.872 --> 02:19:16.790
That's one of the reasons you can't really see it.
02:19:16.790 --> 02:19:22.055
But my, my rug is lavender and that is one of the reasons why it's still pushing back again.
02:19:22.055 --> 02:19:25.434
I wasn't allowed to have a new female friends after the age of six.
02:19:25.434 --> 02:19:29.813
The grandfathered in one girl that I was.
02:19:29.813 --> 02:19:34.750
I'm still with her, so like, and then and then I was like screw this.
02:19:34.750 --> 02:19:36.534
When I was 16 and I joined a pretty girl clique.
02:19:36.534 --> 02:19:39.404
It was, it's so much fun and uh and so like.
02:19:39.404 --> 02:19:43.816
Gender boundaries absolutely affect me as well, but in a different way that they're.
02:19:43.816 --> 02:19:49.667
They're partly a reflection of my sexuality, but it's not a reflection of my having a different gender identity per se.
02:19:49.888 --> 02:19:59.825
But I think one of the reasons I am, I think one of the reasons I'm really frustrated by this lgb drop the t movement is historically like no offense.
02:19:59.825 --> 02:20:01.592
Man, you're great, I love you, uh.
02:20:01.592 --> 02:20:12.228
But you know, historically gay men have been really shitty allies to trans women like, uh, you know, if you look for the push to gay marriage, um, you know legislating this in states.
02:20:12.228 --> 02:20:14.376
I invite anyone to go look at the history.
02:20:14.376 --> 02:20:24.119
What is the first poker chip that the gay men running HRC threw in the pile with every single opportunity to push gay rights along?
02:20:24.119 --> 02:20:25.079
It was us.
02:20:25.646 --> 02:20:29.314
It's kind of like the sucker jets pushing aside the needs of black women.
02:20:29.614 --> 02:20:31.398
Exactly the same, oh, interesting.
02:20:32.465 --> 02:20:36.093
Shirley Chisholm in the 70s and all that very similar now I want to be clear.
02:20:36.433 --> 02:20:41.314
I see the way that lesbians are treated by this iteration of the trans movement.
02:20:41.636 --> 02:20:46.447
It horrifies me, like, like, if you're into women, like, god bless, no judgment.
02:20:46.447 --> 02:21:03.441
But the way it was when I transitioned is there was an understanding that you needed immense sensitivity about entering those spaces and that you were not entitled to be there, that you could earn your space there with a certain threshold of behavior.
02:21:03.441 --> 02:21:13.838
But like, when I see lesbian friends of mine talking about, like people on these apps, talking about you know, sucking their girl dick or whatever, like, whatever, like it's horrifying behavior.
02:21:13.838 --> 02:21:16.343
So I understand why the trust has been broken.
02:21:16.343 --> 02:21:31.495
But I think again, historically, I feel like there's this reversal of the victim, like order here, and historically trans women have been treated like shit by lg and b and it's like it's.
02:21:31.495 --> 02:21:43.859
This is the time where we really really need that solidarity, because I am connected enough in Congress to have an inkling of what's coming down the pipe and this is going to be a hell of a four years for us.
02:21:43.859 --> 02:21:49.474
So it just it feels very self-involved, if that makes sense to you so a little piece of history.
02:21:49.533 --> 02:21:58.638
So in 2015, when the Obergefell decision came out of the Supreme Court that legalized same-sex marriage across the country, I went down to Stonewall here in New York City.
02:21:58.638 --> 02:21:59.639
There was this great rally.
02:21:59.639 --> 02:22:11.293
It was really exciting and lots of speakers, and I always like to say that I was there at the moment that the trans right movement really grew out of the old gay movement and it was like the fifth speaker and it was a trans woman.
02:22:17.924 --> 02:22:18.600
I grew out of the old gay movement and it was like the fifth speaker and it was a trans woman.
02:22:18.600 --> 02:22:21.798
I don't know who she was, but she got up and she was pissed and she said all right, you gay guys like you got what you want, don't you leave us in the dust.
02:22:21.798 --> 02:22:22.091
That's right.
02:22:22.091 --> 02:22:29.628
And in new york state, the empire state pride agenda was solely devoted to trying to get gay marriage legalized and they succeeded and they closed down.
02:22:29.628 --> 02:22:40.378
And that enraged a lot of the trans rights activists in particular, because they felt that they could have remodeled themselves and then that that, in fact, is often a criticism of glad.
02:22:40.378 --> 02:22:48.088
We've seen these arguments that, oh, glad should have just shut down because you know, gay rights, they're fine now and then they had to go into the trans stuff and now they've gone bananas.
02:22:48.088 --> 02:22:49.653
But it it really.
02:22:49.653 --> 02:22:59.930
2015 was such a turning point that was right when the times magazine magazine article came out with the trans tipping point, with a I was horrified that day.
02:22:59.950 --> 02:23:02.054
I wish that never came out.
02:23:02.373 --> 02:23:27.295
so just that what that moment was really, when what we see now as the trans rights rights movement begins and it was the next year that what's called section 1557 in the Affordable Care Act that the Obama administration changed that to say that you can't discriminate on gender identity, justice with sex, and so that, as you're saying, was how the Obama administration made it so that there was much more insurance coverage for all of us, as you were referring earlier.
02:23:27.295 --> 02:23:29.852
So tell me, why do you have a problem with that?
02:23:29.852 --> 02:23:30.293
I met her once.
02:23:36.345 --> 02:23:37.186
I was once in a show.
02:23:37.186 --> 02:23:38.168
Because so lovely.
02:23:38.168 --> 02:23:42.298
I just want to say yeah, um, well, it's because, like, did it work out well for the jews in germany being super visible?
02:23:42.298 --> 02:23:48.585
I think trans people are always safest when we're kind of invisible yeah, and there's something that's bad to be too stealth, that what?
02:23:48.685 --> 02:23:49.407
why do you have to apologize?
02:23:49.407 --> 02:23:49.507
I?
02:23:49.567 --> 02:23:52.253
mean, look, there are valid techniques both ways.
02:23:52.253 --> 02:24:12.465
But I think the problem right now is trans people are so hyper visible and my life was much, much better when people weren't thinking about this all the time, like the amount of information people have like about stuff like dilation it's just astonishing to me or understanding, like the testosterone markers, like like brow ridges.
02:24:12.465 --> 02:24:13.368
This is.
02:24:13.368 --> 02:24:21.275
This was not common knowledge 10 years ago, so I think it's so much harder to pass today because people are so much more tuned into the.
02:24:21.335 --> 02:24:24.808
It's kind of like how aids made people talk about homosexuality all the time in the 80s.
02:24:24.808 --> 02:24:34.134
It was for the better in the end, because we had to discuss it, but in the short term it was absolutely terrible yeah, all right.
02:24:34.774 --> 02:24:35.896
Uh, anyone taff?
02:24:35.896 --> 02:24:36.878
I kind of cut you off.
02:24:36.917 --> 02:25:11.856
Did you have anything you wanted to say, or I've got one last question, if you don't I guess, on the note about suffragettes and black women and the sort of desire to cut off one part of the community as at least a bargaining chip or something, I think it's one of the reasons why I feel such a strong need to defend non-binary people or people who are AGP autosexual, I think or people you know who just have have lower dysphoria right.
02:25:11.856 --> 02:25:25.697
I think that fundamentally, there needs to be an argument that is strong enough to protect all groups right To say that only white women should get voting rights.
02:25:26.066 --> 02:25:47.450
I think it's fundamentally a weak argument and it's much stronger stronger ultimately to defend voting rights for all women yeah, people and all people could be different, and that's okay not tolerate, but celebrate difference, which I always want to say yeah, totally, I think you sort of kick the can down the road if you just, you know, advocate for white women.
02:25:48.152 --> 02:26:04.475
Um, so I I feel that very strongly, and that is just a big part of my approach to all of this is trying to find that position that is more true to what's actually going on here, and so that's why I talk so much about freedom and responsibility.
02:26:04.475 --> 02:26:09.772
It's hard, it's really complicated, uh, but I think that's where it has to ultimately go.
02:26:09.772 --> 02:26:11.175
I think that's fair.
02:26:11.396 --> 02:26:12.117
I think that's fair.
02:26:12.117 --> 02:26:18.603
I I think it's sometimes hard like if you're in the public policy space, because who are the?
02:26:18.603 --> 02:26:24.775
What are the public policy proposals being pushed by serious people for non-binary people?
02:26:24.775 --> 02:26:28.170
Um, I think when it expands to stuff like the.
02:26:28.170 --> 02:26:42.737
You know the california law that lets someone non-binary just fill out a form and then go into a women's locker room and wave their dick around, that's a serious public policy conflict that I don't think it serves trans women to be in the middle of.
02:26:42.737 --> 02:26:48.657
So I'm open to a public policy solution there that works for everyone.
02:26:49.206 --> 02:26:58.264
From my point of view there there it really feels like everyone, especially in the non-binary space, is such a maximalist when it comes to gender ideology.
02:26:58.264 --> 02:26:59.528
It's hard to pick the.
02:26:59.528 --> 02:27:23.815
I'm with you on the freedom argument, but if you're going for concrete, like changes to law and policy and w standards, we don't have any clinical criteria that are worth a damn for, like diagnosing what a non-binary person is, the WPATH like document standards of care on how to treat non-binary people Go read it.
02:27:23.815 --> 02:27:27.549
It's a page and a half and it just basically says pick your own gender role.
02:27:27.549 --> 02:27:46.835
So I think it would be easier for me to do that if there were coherent public policy agenda that wasn't just destroy all gender and announce your pronouns, if that makes sense and this is not really about non-binary but just about how the law can be the these conflicts are irreconcilable and judges will have to decide in the sand.
02:27:46.916 --> 02:28:04.859
As a volleyball player case, both sides are using title nine to argue for their point of view, saying title nine protects trans girls right to be in women's sports or it protects women's rights to have their single sex spaces, and one side will have to win.
02:28:04.859 --> 02:28:05.761
This will go.
02:28:05.761 --> 02:28:08.308
You know, who knows, maybe it'll end up in the supreme court.
02:28:08.308 --> 02:28:17.970
But this is a serious problem and just sticking your hand in the sand and saying that there isn't nuance on either side of this is not exactly helping the public discourse.
02:28:18.332 --> 02:28:21.083
I was in this group of people who were, you know, very.
02:28:21.083 --> 02:28:32.093
I was talking with a mom who had these, you know very elite swimming children and they all went to major schools they recruited, and she was only talking about, like, keeping men out of, you know, women's sports, that kind of thing.
02:28:32.093 --> 02:28:37.867
And I said to her well, what is fair for the trans woman, the trans girl or she?
02:28:37.867 --> 02:28:44.623
Her head exploded and the problem is, like some of these arguments are irreconcilable.
02:28:44.623 --> 02:28:46.009
One side will have to win.
02:28:46.009 --> 02:28:47.073
Either you're in or out.
02:28:47.073 --> 02:28:55.995
This is a binary choice and it's just really painful because you know leah thomas would hopefully have a right to compete as best she can.
02:28:55.995 --> 02:28:59.753
But the question is like is your right limited?
02:28:59.753 --> 02:29:03.222
Do you have to swim in the men's division and be, you know, 400?
02:29:03.484 --> 02:29:06.570
it's that whole question of like does it infringe on women's rights?
02:29:06.570 --> 02:29:08.797
Or like, yeah, natal women, because it's?
02:29:08.797 --> 02:29:09.947
This is the problem.
02:29:09.947 --> 02:29:22.351
I mean, I I see this with like balancing, like tap is put out, like you know, it needs to be sort of expansive and respect human autonomy in the sense that some people might want to like do it might benefit from hrt, but not a full transition.
02:29:22.351 --> 02:29:35.416
But then when you come to the actual policy implications of granting provisions for transgender women, then you run into problems because not everyone is really fitting that standard of what you think when you imagine a transgender woman.
02:29:36.106 --> 02:29:40.655
Like we've all talked about here, there are only men's or women's bathrooms or you know, just single serve.
02:29:40.655 --> 02:29:43.192
You know we don't have a third option.
02:29:43.192 --> 02:29:45.513
There is not a third option in sports.
02:29:45.513 --> 02:29:50.175
So unless we create those third options, either you're in or you're out.
02:29:50.576 --> 02:30:07.813
Yeah, yeah, I mean I surprised the point totally absurd that the government is expected to prop up women's sports when they are just objectively not as valuable as men's sports and the fact that the government is, like, so involved in this causes so many issues.
02:30:07.913 --> 02:30:12.793
Oh boy, yeah, which is awesome, and you know, love that for the free market.
02:30:12.793 --> 02:30:15.191
You've seen these colleges and universities.
02:30:15.191 --> 02:30:42.944
There's a certain number of slots that are allocated for women and a certain amount of money that legally has to be given to these programs and it makes them incredibly competitive and it distorts the reality of accessing these schools and these privileges because everyone wants, you know, know, a piece of that pie and suddenly it gets really competitive in a way that is probably not natural and so in so many ways, we just need again not not the topic of the discussion, totally besides the point.
02:30:42.944 --> 02:30:54.677
But I would love to see the government making us less responsible for these issues, because I think if a private organization wants to have, like trans women and women competing together or doesn't, totally great.
02:30:54.677 --> 02:31:08.917
But the problem is that, like we as a society are forced to buy into whatever the government's deciding and suddenly everyone has a stake in this and a really strong opinion on whether or not trans women are women, which is probably not helping I love that.
02:31:08.958 --> 02:31:21.177
The longer this show, the more based uh libertarian yeah, I love that, okay.
02:31:21.237 --> 02:31:29.271
Final question uh, because we got another rest of the show to do, I wanted to do a little bit of healing here on doll cast today.
02:31:29.271 --> 02:31:37.054
So, the same way that some people were showing you, some were showing tweets out of context that you had made.
02:31:37.054 --> 02:31:50.650
Ben, I was in a tweet thread three days ago where someone was attacking my girl, kelly cadigan, yeah, on twitter, saying that she had an issue with, uh, gay men with the tweets she had put out.
02:31:50.650 --> 02:31:55.655
So, kelly, I was wondering if you could just give Ben a little bit of context.
02:31:56.145 --> 02:31:57.631
I don't even know what you're talking about.
02:31:57.631 --> 02:32:04.250
So, kelly, I had never heard of you until this June when I saw your video where you're like in the car and you're saying all gay men should transition.
02:32:04.932 --> 02:32:11.393
Oh God, that was a joke that went very viral, and so I don't know you.
02:32:11.393 --> 02:32:15.450
I didn't know if you were joking, and some people have said that you are.
02:32:15.450 --> 02:32:17.695
Um, I myself was very shocked by the video.
02:32:17.695 --> 02:32:18.865
I thought it's very hurtful.
02:32:18.865 --> 02:32:22.093
So if you were joking, okay, but so I would.
02:32:22.093 --> 02:32:27.433
I would love to hear from you of, like, what you meant by that video and how you would like people to have interpreted it.
02:32:27.433 --> 02:32:28.617
What, what, you know, what?
02:32:28.617 --> 02:32:29.566
Were you being ironic?
02:32:29.566 --> 02:32:31.068
I don't even know it was.
02:32:31.248 --> 02:32:35.777
It was my response to kind of just the lgb drop the t situation.
02:32:35.777 --> 02:32:43.038
I just kind of, shortly after that video, I made like a whole like stupid logo for like t drop the g you know it's great, it's never too late.
02:32:43.038 --> 02:32:46.662
Um, just because that it was just my response to them, and how foolish they sounded.
02:32:46.662 --> 02:32:49.549
I obviously don't think all gay men should transition.
02:32:49.549 --> 02:32:51.755
I appreciate that, because out of context.
02:32:51.876 --> 02:32:52.638
I had no idea.
02:32:52.638 --> 02:32:57.072
I don't know your general persona, so I didn't know that.
02:32:57.072 --> 02:32:58.932
I was really very shocked.
02:33:00.066 --> 02:33:02.594
So are we not going to Ben's house after the show?
02:33:05.011 --> 02:33:06.254
And we're going to tie you down.
02:33:08.166 --> 02:33:11.494
I thought it was valid because the LGB drop the T movement.
02:33:11.494 --> 02:33:14.078
They're essentially saying that people like us, right?
02:33:14.078 --> 02:33:18.433
Like we were making an ironic statement Gay men Right Instead of just like being trans.
02:33:18.433 --> 02:33:26.154
And so I was like, okay, well, if you're going to say that, I'm just going to say you guys should be forced to be trans women, especially if you're bottoms, I appreciate the form of performance art in that sense.
02:33:26.353 --> 02:33:29.557
So now I get it, you know, but at the time I really didn't.
02:33:29.557 --> 02:33:33.960
I don't know how you add that little asterisk in the middle of your video.
02:33:33.960 --> 02:33:37.730
This is a joke, I'm being ironic to comment on the social mores of our time.
02:33:38.424 --> 02:33:39.211
That's half the fun.
02:33:39.211 --> 02:33:40.784
Half the fun is letting people think it's real.
02:33:40.886 --> 02:33:41.854
You're a provoca-treese.
02:33:43.365 --> 02:33:43.788
Okay.
02:33:43.788 --> 02:33:49.393
To be fair, though, Ben, I've known a few gay men to have an cervix sense of humor.
02:33:49.393 --> 02:33:52.662
That's a little bit dark on occasions.
02:33:52.662 --> 02:33:57.155
I feel like kelly can make a joke or two and it doesn't like I really appreciate that now.
02:33:57.215 --> 02:34:04.370
I kind of like the video in a way, because I appreciate that you were being really wicked and I I kind of like that, that way of just like stirring the pot a bit.
02:34:04.370 --> 02:34:12.736
So the way you were behaving, you came, you were tipper, you were purposely coming across as an airhead, like the way you were talking, you know.
02:34:12.736 --> 02:34:17.908
And so now I understand that you were being really sardonic, so I appreciate that.
02:34:18.290 --> 02:34:21.791
Yeah, I'm sorry that if you, if it came across in a way that, like, we have a healing.
02:34:22.433 --> 02:34:22.995
I love this.
02:34:22.995 --> 02:34:28.191
Wouldn't it be amazing if, like Alejandro Caraballo, watched this whole video and they're like, no getting along.
02:34:28.191 --> 02:34:30.376
He's not really a transphobe.
02:34:30.376 --> 02:34:32.478
What will I do to destroy him?
02:34:32.478 --> 02:34:32.879
Now?
02:34:32.879 --> 02:34:38.156
You know it's kind of good, so I don't know All right Final thoughts anybody?
02:34:39.184 --> 02:34:46.293
I just, you know it saddens me that when people think of the trans community, those are the names that come to their mind.
02:34:46.293 --> 02:34:50.727
Like I feel, like that's so commonly heard and like you should be able.
02:34:50.727 --> 02:34:55.951
We should want better research in trans medicine, like in gender medicine.
02:34:55.951 --> 02:34:56.905
I want better research.
02:34:56.905 --> 02:35:16.926
I want to know the people that stand to benefit from this transitional treatment, because there's too many transitioners and they seem to be growing that are coming in and saying, oh, it's all facade, it's all wrong, it's just harmful to the body and it's like look, I know there's risks to estrogen.
02:35:16.926 --> 02:35:17.528
I researched those in depth.
02:35:17.528 --> 02:35:31.221
That was the whole point of like doing that, you know, exploration before I transitioned and I still wanted this treatment and I fully recognize that, yeah, there may be some harms long-term, but I'm still happier and I would rather choose this than I would have before and I want that.
02:35:31.301 --> 02:35:33.950
You told yes, you felt the balance was on this end.
02:35:34.131 --> 02:36:00.476
You know, you understood the risks, you know right, because I had that informed yeah I was informed and it's like that's actual gender medicine, like info, informing people and giving them a little bit of breaks to like I hate to say the word gatekeeping, but a little bit of that is healthy, it's good, and we got to get away from this model of it, this inevitable, unquestionable essence of gender identity and people and you can't push back at all.
02:36:00.476 --> 02:36:02.577
It's like no, you need to push back.
02:36:02.577 --> 02:36:06.281
That's what medicine is and it's helping people figure out that process.
02:36:09.885 --> 02:36:12.515
I think the average person on the liberal side doesn't understand that, indeed, the science is weak.
02:36:12.515 --> 02:36:13.379
They think that that's just a smokescreen.
02:36:13.379 --> 02:36:22.498
Or the science is weak for everything Like yes, for a lot of things that don't come with these risks, because the risks are so high the known risks about infertility and sexual dysfunction.
02:36:22.498 --> 02:36:34.920
Therefore, that raises the bar, and I don't think people on the left understand how uninvested the research endeavor is in answering a lot of these questions.
02:36:34.920 --> 02:36:41.359
They're not interested in creating more effective quote-unquote gatekeeping psychosocial assessments is what they're called.
02:36:41.359 --> 02:36:45.014
In fact, they're interested in degrading them and getting rid of them.
02:36:45.466 --> 02:36:56.049
Boston Children's used to allot 20 hours in 2007 to 2006 about 14 or so for the psychologists to assess these kids and to write the reports on them.
02:36:56.049 --> 02:37:04.279
That got whittled down to two and a half hours by 2018 and this was kept secret until it came out in a court case last month.
02:37:04.279 --> 02:37:06.284
And that's really telling.
02:37:06.284 --> 02:37:11.817
When they're telling you, michael hobbs will go on his podcast and say oh, there's no evidence.
02:37:11.817 --> 02:37:15.253
Anyone's rushing these kids, the first clinic to ever do this.
02:37:15.253 --> 02:37:19.557
Boston children's is the most prestigious pediatric clinic in the world.
02:37:19.557 --> 02:37:22.575
If not possibly in the world, it's definitely in the country.
02:37:22.575 --> 02:37:25.292
If they're doing it in two and a half hours.
02:37:25.292 --> 02:37:25.694
That's one.
02:37:25.694 --> 02:37:28.211
That's one to our appointment with kids and then with their parents.
02:37:29.355 --> 02:37:34.328
I how can you not call that rushing?
02:37:34.328 --> 02:38:01.262
It's amazing to me I I hear what you're saying about the evidence that, ben, I feel like this is put out there though to like like it's not my fault, it's not the trans community's fault, that for four years, the main people willing to do research about this are shitty, underqualified grad students, like doing surveys to pass out to undergrads, and that very little nih money has come out of here to do hard studies like.
02:38:01.262 --> 02:38:02.825
If anything this is.
02:38:02.825 --> 02:38:06.995
I feel like it's twisted around us, this argument against the trans community.
02:38:06.995 --> 02:38:14.207
The way I interpret that is this is how little anyone has given a shit about us these are the best people representing us.
02:38:14.266 --> 02:38:15.248
Thanks a lot, guys.
02:38:15.349 --> 02:38:18.716
Yeah, I mean honestly it's.
02:38:18.716 --> 02:38:38.058
It's like sometimes I I'm not gonna give his name, but there's a mutual friend of ours and he'll often put out, you know, critiques about the, the level of evidence-based medicine for trans health care and like I understand it, I hear you, but like where the hell were you 40 years ago when trans women could have used this stuff?
02:38:38.425 --> 02:38:39.227
we are out here.
02:38:39.227 --> 02:38:45.278
We've been trying to survive and many of us have not been like for 40 years.
02:38:45.278 --> 02:38:55.409
So like, like I wish you'd stop talking not you, but I wish people would stop talking about us Like we're just pulling this out of nowhere, like no one has been helping us.
02:38:55.409 --> 02:38:56.333
It is insane.
02:38:56.854 --> 02:38:59.470
Yeah, it's not an indictment on the trans community.
02:38:59.470 --> 02:39:07.737
That like it's really hard to get these studies and it's very frustrating for all trans people because we want the strong evidence.
02:39:07.737 --> 02:39:12.764
However, it is because we want people with gender dysphoria to live happy, healthy.
02:39:12.764 --> 02:39:22.825
Yeah, and you know, therapy is fully necessary and we need that, plus transition, whatever it works out to be.
02:39:22.825 --> 02:39:31.028
We need to know that and it really is just this like activist group that does not benefit from helping us.
02:39:31.028 --> 02:39:48.350
They benefit from continually pushing a certain conversation and narrative and attacking and destroying people like you, when you're willing to, like, maybe, raise a flag, quite frankly, in defense of us and in defense of people who might end up as detransitioners.
02:39:48.350 --> 02:39:58.251
We need people like you, frankly, the only kind of people who I respect, who are willing to actually take a stand for something real.
02:39:59.345 --> 02:40:04.251
It's amazing to me, this group of women, to have such a nuanced conversation like this.
02:40:04.251 --> 02:40:06.352
This is what we need all over the place.
02:40:06.352 --> 02:40:08.058
I really hope people watch this video.
02:40:08.058 --> 02:40:13.613
I think people would get a lot of it For one thing, just witnessing people having a dialogue.
02:40:13.613 --> 02:40:17.154
We're not strangling each other across the airwaves no.
02:40:18.665 --> 02:40:20.472
But, granted, we also don't have points of view.
02:40:20.472 --> 02:40:23.192
If Alejandra Caraballo were here, we would have a different.
02:40:23.192 --> 02:40:26.453
It would not be interesting.
02:40:26.453 --> 02:40:28.091
I would totally do that.
02:40:28.091 --> 02:40:35.736
That was one of the things I had been just discussing with Ari before she flew up at me, and I blew up at her in the spring.
02:40:35.736 --> 02:40:42.791
I had just reached out to her and said why don't we have some sort of a webcast where we have people of different points of view?
02:40:42.791 --> 02:40:45.111
She was not okay with that.
02:40:45.111 --> 02:40:49.274
I don't want to divulge just totally private conversation, but she turned it down.
02:40:49.274 --> 02:40:57.109
Let's just put it that way and just totally private conversation, but she turned it down.
02:40:57.129 --> 02:40:59.915
Let's just put it that way, and that's a shame, because that's what we need and not, you know, character assassinations on twitter.
02:40:59.935 --> 02:41:38.708
Yeah, I mean, I do want to say, ben, like I don't think I would have alejandro on this show, like when we were, when we were designing the show one of the things we decided like as a group is we didn't want it to be shouty like I love me some destiny I watch plenty of those, but the world does not need another like drama-based, like conflict heavy yeah, um, you know show about trans issues and I have people that reach out to me all the time asking to be on here and I look at their social media and I ask for video clips and I'm discussing this and I'm like you can't be an adult, and that goes both ways, like for the gender critical side and the trans activist side.
02:41:38.708 --> 02:41:46.329
So if you're going to be screaming or you can't act like an adult and defend your positions, this is not a show for you.
02:41:46.530 --> 02:41:48.734
Like, like would you have n Nancy Mace on.
02:41:49.556 --> 02:41:51.459
Oh, I'm sorry, oh, nancy.
02:41:51.498 --> 02:41:54.051
Mace yeah 100%.
02:41:54.867 --> 02:42:03.434
Yeah, she's quite the performance we actually talked about that in our first segment yeah.
02:42:04.846 --> 02:42:09.790
Yeah, and I want to stress too we're not afraid to talk with people that don't agree with us.
02:42:09.790 --> 02:42:14.114
Actually, we think there's a lot of value in that, because it makes it more enriching.
02:42:14.135 --> 02:42:16.565
Yeah, it's gotta be good faith, right.
02:42:16.565 --> 02:42:38.073
Like we're all respectful here, we're all adults, Like we want to treat each other in that, when that way, and we want to have good dialogue, we don't want to be name calling you know whatever it's called where you that fallacy, where you're attacking the person ad hominem, that whole thing.
02:42:38.073 --> 02:42:38.292
Like we're.
02:42:38.292 --> 02:42:42.549
We're trying to get like good discussions across, to get all the different viewpoints to show like what, who is best served by gender medicine and what is good medicine look like?
02:42:42.549 --> 02:42:45.281
What does good trans rights actually look like?
02:42:45.281 --> 02:42:58.834
Because this is something I've been thinking about more and more as I'm seeing the clash between women's rights and then issues with children, and it's like what is really good trans rights look like and I like having those dialogues and seeing what others think.
02:42:59.566 --> 02:43:02.252
I mean, look how Kelly or Brianna disagree with me.
02:43:02.252 --> 02:43:09.834
It's like it's so exactly.
02:43:09.834 --> 02:43:19.375
But I think it's so valuable, like love, when they do that, because that is how we create something that is better than like just my you know beliefs or just theirs.
02:43:19.375 --> 02:43:41.069
It's greater than the sum of its parts, and I think it's so important to have the conversation fundamentally predicated on a respect and a desire for truth, and it's hard to do that if you're talking to someone who's totally dug in, um, who's willing to use those personal attacks so a little bit more interesting when they disagree, you know if I
02:43:41.110 --> 02:43:43.274
hear rs wish or disagree with andrew sullivan.
02:43:43.274 --> 02:43:43.977
I love that.
02:43:43.977 --> 02:43:51.091
You know, one of the things I just like the most about michael hobbs's podcast is it's filled with this yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:43:51.091 --> 02:43:56.653
They always agree with one another and that's just paralytically boring for one thing.
02:43:57.605 --> 02:44:02.753
Well, it's very easy to talk to you with respect, taff, because I adore you, I think you're literally the best.
02:44:02.753 --> 02:44:05.754
It's 10% that I disagree with you on.
02:44:05.754 --> 02:44:14.709
I don't want to disagree because I know, but you know there it is but no, it's good, yeah, yeah, you can disagree with that?
02:44:14.729 --> 02:44:22.013
disrespecting no ideal human interaction, you know so all right, so we could do that, though would she be able to have an argument in good?
02:44:22.054 --> 02:44:27.736
faith because I feel like I would be very interested to know that would be very interesting to see that conversation let me work on magic.
02:44:27.736 --> 02:44:33.810
We'll see what happens reach out to her like that could be really big if you got her on here, you would get a lot of views.
02:44:34.505 --> 02:44:35.530
I know a lot of people.
02:44:35.530 --> 02:44:38.453
Ben, that's all I'm going to say All right.
02:44:38.453 --> 02:44:40.872
I think that's a good place to end it.
02:44:40.872 --> 02:44:43.092
Every night, Ben, where can people follow?
02:44:43.131 --> 02:44:43.573
your work.
02:44:43.573 --> 02:44:48.308
Okay, so my sub stack is benryansubstackcom.
02:44:48.308 --> 02:44:50.970
X in Blue Sky, ben Ryan Writer.
02:44:50.970 --> 02:44:52.852
My website is benryannet.
02:44:52.852 --> 02:44:54.754
Thanks a lot.
02:44:54.773 --> 02:44:55.495
I want to thank you.
02:44:55.495 --> 02:44:59.599
You wrote the best description of me in one of the pieces you ever wrote.
02:44:59.599 --> 02:45:03.361
I really hope someone goes and edits it into Wikipedia.
02:45:07.465 --> 02:45:07.893
Where you're.
02:45:07.893 --> 02:45:09.614
Like you know, brianna Wu is not here to make friends.
02:45:09.614 --> 02:45:11.382
Well, what I said was you know you could use that old adage about reality TV that she's not here to make friends.
02:45:11.382 --> 02:45:15.202
Well, what I said was you know you could use that, that old adage about, um, that a reality tv, that she's not here to make friends, but she is.
02:45:15.202 --> 02:45:26.375
I mean, you're, you're trying to bridge these gulfs, and sometimes that's not possible, mind you, and because you say things sort of from the middle, you offend people on either side and that alienates them.
02:45:26.375 --> 02:45:27.146
And what can you do?
02:45:27.146 --> 02:45:27.988
But like.
02:45:27.988 --> 02:45:33.027
Ultimately, your central purpose right now is to use the voice that you still have.
02:45:33.027 --> 02:45:35.855
Considering you have this health condition, it's just like.
02:45:35.855 --> 02:45:42.353
So it's so sadly poetic is stealing your voice, like you're in a rush to like.
02:45:42.353 --> 02:45:43.897
Use that while you still have it.
02:45:43.897 --> 02:45:46.650
I think that's really beautiful thank you, ben.
02:45:46.710 --> 02:45:47.413
I appreciate that.
02:45:47.413 --> 02:46:00.132
I think what you're doing is very helpful too, and I think you're one of the best allies the trans community has, and I hope every single trans person watches this and gets the fuck off your back because it's not appropriate.
02:46:02.672 --> 02:46:04.075
It's part of the job, but it's unpleasant.
02:46:04.344 --> 02:46:15.920
It doesn't have to be as personal I know where my heart lies, you know, and I think, at the core of this, if you are a decent human being, what you say is especially about the kids issue, like how do we best care for these kids?
02:46:15.920 --> 02:46:48.493
These kids are here, they're very distressed in different ways and we want to have a system that can best care for them, and the best system is one where there's daylight and transparency, and we've not seen that and we've seen the w path has not been transparent and behind the scenes has been manipulating their guidelines unscientifically to win court battles and to get insurance coverage, and that they themselves are fully aware of the weakness of the science and that that's not just a trifle, as it would be if you gave a kid some Tylenol.
02:46:48.894 --> 02:46:52.009
Oh my goodness, all right, you're going to have to come back on dog house.
02:46:52.009 --> 02:46:55.519
This is not the last time you're here yeah, this is amazing.
02:46:55.539 --> 02:47:01.985
Thank you so much I'm really glad, kelly, that I figured that out, that you were joking and and now I think it's kind of awesome.
02:47:01.985 --> 02:47:08.162
Sometimes I like to stir the pot too, so it was a kind of performance art.
02:47:08.162 --> 02:47:10.829
That is was very political, so now I find it fascinating.
02:47:12.805 --> 02:47:13.769
I'm glad we sorted that out.
02:47:14.150 --> 02:47:14.733
I really did.
02:47:14.733 --> 02:47:16.191
I was actually very upset.
02:47:16.191 --> 02:47:18.337
That game was hilarious.
02:47:18.337 --> 02:47:20.148
It is hilarious.
02:47:20.148 --> 02:47:21.433
Now I understand the context.
02:47:23.370 --> 02:47:23.711
I didn't.
02:47:23.811 --> 02:47:28.569
I'd never heard of her, so that was why I just like I was like who is this little A lot?
02:47:28.650 --> 02:47:32.488
of people took it and blew it out of proportion, out of context.
02:47:32.568 --> 02:47:36.518
So like, yeah, it's like how could I not, since I didn't know you.
02:47:36.518 --> 02:47:42.371
So that's kind of like what the wall you're up against when you're trying to do that is.
02:47:42.371 --> 02:47:45.572
If people don't know who you are, they don't get the joke you know Amazing.
02:47:46.394 --> 02:47:47.175
All right, all right.
02:47:52.105 --> 02:47:52.768
Thanks for coming, ben.
02:47:52.768 --> 02:47:55.138
I'm going to remove you from stage now.
02:47:55.138 --> 02:47:55.579
Talk to you soon.
02:47:55.579 --> 02:47:56.362
We have that.
02:47:56.362 --> 02:47:58.629
Woo, alright, yep.
02:47:58.629 --> 02:48:07.611
Thank you all, everyone for tuning in and listening in and hanging out with us today on Dollcast, we had an amazing guest with Benjamin Ryan.
02:48:07.611 --> 02:48:09.272
We were so blessed to have him here.
02:48:09.272 --> 02:48:16.456
So much fun and honestly, it was amazing to go over his incredible work and just have a normal conversation and chill out with him.
02:48:16.456 --> 02:48:32.147
So if you're interested in more things like that, don't forget to follow us on YouTube at dollcastr8n that's dollcast-r8n or you can check us out on TikTok at just dollcast for more content and updates.
02:48:32.147 --> 02:48:36.290
Until next time, stay fabulous and don't let anyone dim your light.
02:48:37.872 --> 02:48:48.798
So today's episode is, uh, taff terminated terminated kelly, today's episode is terminated and brie.
02:48:48.798 --> 02:48:50.487
Today's episode is terminated that's right.
02:48:50.509 --> 02:48:51.292
Today's episode is terminated and brie.
02:48:51.313 --> 02:48:52.118
Today's episode is terminated.
02:48:52.138 --> 02:48:59.458
That's right, today's episode is terminated oh my god, what a great show.
02:48:59.458 --> 02:49:00.340
Oh my god.