E1x02 Colin Wright: Unraveling Trans Healthcare

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ready.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Let's do it.
Welcome to DogCast.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
With Kelly Cadigan.

Speaker 4 (00:12):
I know you guys are going to tell me I'm crazy, but
I think all gay men wouldbenefit from a gender transition
.
Rihanna Wu.
Do you know who Rihanna Wu is?
It was people on the line.
I said she was Rihanna Wu, so Idon't know what she is now.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Skylar Bogart.
More confused on girls or boyswould be a better fit for me,
and when you're bisexual and youhave the potential for either,
you've got to parse that out alittle bit.

Speaker 5 (00:35):
And Taj Tuff, having your story heard, having people
empathize with you on that kindof political level, I think it's
really hard to do.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's the Dollcast.
Mostly normal women.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Hi there and welcome to Dollcast.
I'm your host, skylar, andtoday's episode is full of hot
topics, big opinions and somegood laughs along the way.
I'm thrilled to be here with myamazing co-hosts, ready to dive
into it all.
First up, let me introduce thefabulous ladies joining me today
.
So to start, we've got BriannaWu Bri.

(01:15):
I don't know how you do it, butyou're the only one who could
predict a twist before itactually happened.
What does that mean?
Predict a twist?
It just means you're good atexpecting the unexpected.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
There we go.
I guess it's my spider sense.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
I guess so.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
You should have been on with your brother.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
That's their catch line.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Then we've got Kelly Cadigan, who brings the heat
with every opinion.
She's got Kelly.
You're like an espresso shot.
You keep us all awake and onour toes.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
You're like an espresso shot.
You keep us all awake and onour toes.
Wow, I guess I'm glad I try tobring the scoop and the heat.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Amazing, Amazing.
And finally we have Taff Taj,whose creativity brings a whole
new vibe to the show.
Taff, I'm pretty sure you couldwrite a novel about just
putting together an outfit shecould.
Let's dive into today's topics.
So, to kick things off, we'regoing to start talking about
what is on everyone's mind thiswhole past week the election.

(02:13):
There's a lot to unpack hereand you know, I think we just
want to like have a moment todecompress a little bit about it
how we feel, what surprised usand, ultimately, what we're
hoping for next.
What's the future, what's thedirection?
Let's break it down, so I'll goahead and Self-pity.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
I don't want the whole show to be about the
election, so let's lock ournegative feelings away and then
let's go have a positive thingafter that.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, I mean, honestly, though I'm not feeling
super negative, I know there'sa lot of negative sentiment
online, but I kind of saw thiscoming.
I'm going to be honest, like Ifeel like this wasn't a huge
shocker to me.
I like I felt like, you know,there's been a lot of warning
signs along the way.
There's a lot of people thatare kind of just over it when it

(03:02):
comes to the whole woke-ismthing, and I mean this has been
a trend.
I mean, I've seen so manypeople say that woke-ism is gone
and whatever's coming next.
I'm not exactly sure what thatis, but that seems to be what
Trump's whole platform was onwas attacking it.
And I mean, let's be real, Ithink the biggest thing about

(03:23):
the pendulum of politics is whatis the economy like?
And I mean I hate to say this,but the economy has not been
great during the, during theDemocratic administration, and
it's not like it's their faultexactly, but that's the state of
things and people always wantsomething changed.
So to me it wasn't a hugeshocker on this.
But how did y'all feel?

(03:46):
I mean, you know what?
Was this a blind side thingwhen this happened?

Speaker 4 (03:50):
I didn't see it coming.
I, I mean, I just believed whatthe polls were saying and
projected to be.
Um, also, I I knew brie wasworking closely with the
campaign, um, so I, I I put alot of trust in her opinion, and
it seems like a lot of peoplewere not expecting this to go
this way.
But it is what it is, and Ijust think us, as Americans, the

(04:11):
best thing we can do is acceptthese results and not react the
way that the Republican Partydid four years ago with just
saying, oh, it's bullshit andthe election was a fraud.
You know, that's not how thiscountry is supposed to run.
And so, yeah, I think the bestthing we can do is just accept
it, for what it is.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
To be fair, my claim to you on Back Channel was that
the Democrats had put together arecord-breaking
get-out-the-vote operation toget people to the polls, which
was true.
We absolutely dominated on that.
I expected it to be a lotcloser and down to the wire and
if that had been true and thepolls had been true, that get

(04:51):
out the vote effort would havecarried us over the top.
The problem is the Americanpeople were frustrated about
inflation and you know, frankly,you know there's a whole
discussion about trans politicsand I think I think the the, the

(05:30):
ads that we talked about in thelast episode, I think those did
have salience.
So does that match up with howy'all feel?

Speaker 5 (05:36):
I mean, it's very, it's super vindicating to see
that, because you know, we talkabout these things all the time
and sometimes people will belike why are you talking about
this?
Nobody cares about this, thisdoesn't affect politics at all,
like you know, just shut up andthen you see, like these polls
that come out and it's like thenumber one thing that swing

(05:58):
state voters said was I don'tlike that Kamala is more focused
on these social issues of transpolitics than inflation and it
just indicates that like, yeah,democrats are so willing to die
on these like social Hills andthey're just not with their base
.
And I think for me that'sreally been the whole story of

(06:18):
this election is Democratscontinually refuse to actually
engage with the issues thatmatter to voting.
And I was, you know, kind of inmy own democratic bubble, which
is why I also thought it wouldbe like, you know, I thought it
was a toss-up 50 50, you know,could have swung either way and

(06:40):
that didn't happen and I thinkit's just it's so indicative of
how people exist in their ownecosystems and do not get a good
sense of what's going on.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
I felt like, too, like there were things that
Kamala did that I was like why,Like not going on the Joe Rogan
podcast, not taking up thoseopportunities?
And then I watched the JD VanceJoe Rogan interview and I'm
like, oh no, he's so relatable,he's so like, oh good.
And I was like, yeah, this is aproblem, you know, just looking

(07:14):
at those like those types ofsigns and I'm just like what
happened here?
And then not to only, not justthat, but the RFK thing Like I
know people have mixed feelingson that Not just that, but the
RFK thing Like I know peoplehave mixed feelings on that but
RFK, his whole like exit speechof when he was dropping out of
the election.
He came down so hard on theDemocrats because he had been a
lifelong Democrat and he pivotedto Trump because Trump was

(07:36):
apparently willing to have aconversation with him when
Kamala and so you have- thislike reversal, which does not
good, does not look good for alot of Democrats because they
don't want to see like Chinesesupporting your guy.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, I mean clearly we paid too much attention to
the Republicans that decidedthey were not going to vote for
Trump and too little for theDemocrats that decided they were
just so uninterested with thisfringe woke project that they
couldn't support us this time.
And you know you asked thequestions, guys how I feel about

(08:12):
the election.
I'm really torn, in the sensethat you know, god, this is
going to get me so much heat,but it's how I feel.
There has to be a reckoningwith trans politics, between
this distance and what thescience says and what the
activist class is doing.

(08:33):
There's got to be a reckoningbetween WPATH, which I think has
been ideologically captured,and trans health care.
And if this is not a wake-upcall to Democrats to say, look,
I understand, it's brand safe tohave Kamala Harris events and

(08:53):
have someone stand up and sayand we're going to have total
freedom for non-binary peopleand trans people and we're going
to have trans people in women'ssports and to just take this
maximalist, safe position,that's going to get you the
least fire from inside the party.
But the American people havedifferent ideas and I don't
think I'm the only one on theshow that thinks this fringe

(09:17):
activist conversation is verydamaging to my rights and the
strongest evidence for that ismy life was so much better
before we were in the public eye.
No one cared, if no one eventhought about me being trans
right, like it literally nevercame up.
So I just I feel like obviouslyI'm terrified about what the

(09:40):
next four years are going to befor trans people.
There's public policy I'veheard coming down the pipeline.
That truly scares me.
But at the same time, there'sgot to be a reckoning and I'm
really proud that we arelaunching DOLCAST in this moment
, because sanity has got to comeback to the conversation and I
think we're really pioneeringthat.

Speaker 5 (10:02):
Yeah, I definitely feel betrayed by Democrats in so
many ways because the left hasclaimed to be fighting for me
for so long and yet, at the sametime, I have been telling, like
left wing people, democrats,like, listen, some of the
rhetoric you're using is nothelpful to us, is not helpful to

(10:30):
us, and you know the Democrats,the left, just insist on using
this inflammatory rhetoric andthese arguments and they insist
on dying on hills.
That only work when you'resurrounded in an echo chamber of
the most left wing people.
And I'm saying over and overthis doesn't work.
This is going to lose youelections, this is going to lead
to a backlash which isultimately going to be worse for
trans people overall, andpeople are just not able to

(10:54):
break out of their bubble andrecognize that like, oh wait,
actually trans people exist inlike red states as well and, and
like you know, actually otherpeople, just people in general,
exist in red states and don'tagree with me and if I say the
most insane thing all the timethat only my friends in like San

(11:14):
Francisco agree with,eventually we're going to get a
president who is going to banall gender transition and, yeah,
people, just people, people.
I see this on twitter, a lot ofpeople are saying that the
problem with kamala harris isthat she was not progressive
enough.
Since I'm insane, I think, aslong as we say that we're just

(11:35):
going to be losing elections.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
So completely yeah yeah, I, I feel like we we've
seen a couple culturalmilestones, particularly with
the trans topics, that are likeso detrimental but are kind of
what I view is like outgrowthsof the lack of policing that the
left has done for themselves.
Like it's like that's sort ofthe theme of where I was almost

(11:57):
like considering Trump, like wehad that discussion before and I
was like you know, trump islike actually, like you said,
brie, like there's a reckoningthat needs to happen, and part
of my viewpoint was that exactthing is like if we don't reckon
now, then the reckoning lateris going to be that much worse,
because it's like the problemsaren't going away.

(12:17):
They're there and some of thosecultural milestones were things
we had talked about, but likebiden trying to put the gender
identity into law, overplacingthe biological sex with the
Title IX legislation Like I sawso many people like so inflamed
over that, and it's like that'snot helpful, like I don't need,

(12:39):
that's not helping me, likethat's not protecting us, that's
trying to.
It's an idealistic dream that,unfortunately, you know, I see
where it's coming from.
It's coming from goodintentions but in practical
application it leads to justblatant unfairness.
I mean, that's it's unfortunateto say that, but it's like

(13:00):
that's the result of it in asocietal viewpoint and it's like
how can we get back to a placeLike what's the proper policies?
And the only way to get thereis with the right conversations
and really bringing in all thesedifferent perspectives.

Speaker 5 (13:13):
Yeah, and for me it's a matter of like holding the
line, like there's a core linein the sand that we need to be
so focused on defending.
And for me that's personalfreedom and personal autonomy.
Like, yes, god damn it, you'rean american, you should have
control of your body right, andthat personal expression is so

(13:33):
important and that's a messagethat resonates with voters
because we have these beliefsand ideals that we can live up
to in this country.
But we're like going beyondthis line to make arguments like
I don't know, like you need tolike believe that we're women,
otherwise, like you are an evilthing.
And it's like I don't needsomeone to believe that I'm a

(13:54):
woman, I just need them to nottry to control my body.
That's my role.
Yes, right.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Love that that's so American.
Tough tough Half a Love thatthat's so American.
Taft, taft.
For president, that is going tobe the opposite title right
there.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
That's going to be it .
I would vote for you 100%.
I do want to push back just alittle bit, like directionally.
I'm in total agreement with allof you.
I would urge you not tounderestimate the threat of what
we're going to be up againstfor the next four years.
The size of the gender criticalproject and the political power
they have amassed trulyterrifies me.

(14:32):
The money that is into transpolitics, anti-trans politics at
this point, truly terrifies me,and the Republicans have
learned the lesson thatattacking us will win them
elections.
So I know, like Buck is myfriend we were really honored to

(14:54):
do a short thing with him thisweek and I know he's saying
trans health care is going to bejust a blanket statement.
Fine, I am not convinced ofthat.
There is legislation comingthrough that is going to impact
people's lives, the place we areprobably going for the next
four years.
You need to be proactive inkeeping yourself safe.

(15:14):
Get your legal documents inorder today.
Go get a passport today,because those rules are going to
be changed and you're not goingto be able to have your gender
on there the way that is goingto help open doors for you.
You know, consider stocking upon, not an extreme amount, but a
little bit of extra HRT.

(15:35):
If changes come through thepipeline of the regulation,
they're going to disrupt it.
You're going to be really gladif you've got that extra two
weeks to figure this stuff out.
So you know, don't screw aroundon this.
And remember one of thestrengths of the American system
is if the vibe and the valuesof Texas fit you more, you can

(15:56):
live in Texas, and if the vibesand values of a place like
Massachusetts fit you more youcan come live here.
I love Massachusetts Our transhealth care is excellent here
and consider moving to a placethat has laws in place that will
respect your rights, because,generally speaking, the states
do have wide authority in howthey regulate this stuff.

(16:18):
So it's undoubtedly true thatyou will be safer in Illinois or
Massachusetts or Chicago thanum or California, than other
States.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
This is so scary, like you.
You were saying to me, likestock up on hormones.
It's like I want to know how,like tough and sky feel.
Because it's like likeliterally what happens if you
can't get your blockers.
Like one month, like you'llrevert, like.
Is that not like terrifying toyou?

Speaker 1 (16:45):
I mean, yeah, well, go ahead, tav yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:48):
No, I'll say more.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
Well, I was just gonna.
I mean I, I mean I don't knowif this is just me, but I, I
think there's two things goingon here and it's like I don't
want to say I don't want toencourage the fear because I
don't think.
Well, no, I know, but it's likethere's a balance right to this
, and I think the wisdom is justto always be prepared, like I
would live by being prepared nomatter what.

(17:11):
And it's like that I I'm finewith, but I, I haven't seen yet.
I know, I know, bree, you, youhave those insider connections,
but I haven't seen the evidencethat my healthcare directly is
actually going to be impacted.
I think Trump makes a lot ofpromises and I will say the
platform underneath of him ismore scary, but it's like I

(17:34):
think there's a lot of thingsthat aren't necessarily going to
happen just so easily and it'slike I mean, look, the facts are
, if he does come after and hemakes like transition very, very
difficult and there's more andmore stories to go with, that
that's going to help us, likethat's going to help people
regain more sympathy for transpeople, because it's like that's

(17:55):
what we're running dry of,because that's what woke
ideology sort of drained from usby giving all these bad
examples of non-reality basedtreatment and policy.
And, honestly, there seems tobe this psychological fragility
that just scares me a little bitgiving all these bad examples
of non-reality based treatmentand policy.
And, honestly, there seems tobe this psychological fragility
that just scares me a little bitwhen, like, that is just about
as scary because it's like I seethat reaction online, you know,
prominent, I guess.

(18:16):
Like what I'm trying to say isthat it's always wise to be
prepared, but I don'tnecessarily want to go off and
say, like everyone should takeso much preventative action on
the basis of fear.
Well, brianna, to your question.

Speaker 5 (18:32):
I am concerned about that and I think it's believe
that I can probably find aclinic that can get me HRT, you
know, in the event that federaltax dollars are withheld from

(18:54):
certain places, and I also feelconfident that I could probably
pay enough money through thegray market to get HRT.
But I'm more worried for thetrans women who can't do that,
for the people who do not havethe freedom to like take a
little bit of time off work tomake sure that they're finding

(19:15):
someone to support them, ordon't have the money to just pay
that extra surcharge and getaccess to it.
And for me, like am Ipersonally worried?
And get access to it?
And for me, like am Ipersonally worried?
Not a ton.
But I am worried for all thetrans women who are in a similar
situation to me but might nothave that access.
That does concern.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
I share that and if I feel sometimes like I just come
back and I really want toclarify, like Alexandra
Caballero or however the hellyou say her name, the the nut
job, like you know, she was outthere saying like, oh, trans,
trans suicides are skyrocketingacross the board.
Trans people are just fun.
That's not my message here.

(19:56):
I'm not telling anyone to hitthe roof.
I'm not saying like an adulthealth care ban is going to
happen tomorrow.
What I am saying is it isreasonable to expect regulations
to change, and when regulationschange, it can disrupt the flow

(20:16):
of stuff, and you're completelyright, tiff, that there will be
alternatives Like, look, I do,fine, I could fly to Canada
tomorrow and get a turkey if itreally came down to it.
But I'm saying this is a widerproblem I have with the
community.
I think that the culture haschanged and there's less and

(20:38):
this is super conservative of mebut I think there are fewer
messages today encouraging transwomen to say look, your destiny
is in your hands, yourtransition is in your hands,
your happiness, your HRT.
You have a responsibility toget this done, so be very
proactive in the decisions thatyou're making.
And what I'm encouraging mysisters and brothers to do is to

(21:01):
say look, this passport law isgoing to be changed like 100%.
Bet on that.
So if you want to have yourmarker reflect your gender
identity, do that suit.
Consider having some extra HRTon hand, and if you're worried
about bathroom things, maybeit's time to consider moving to

(21:24):
a blue state.
But don't like the other sideof this isn't true either.
I've seen so many people sodespondent in reacting out of
proportion to the issues at hand, and that's not helpful.
Right, it's this middle groundof be careful because some big
changes are coming, but don'tlose your mind either.

Speaker 5 (21:46):
You know, just be pragmatic yeah love that.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
I yeah.
So exactly that is exactly whatI think is.
The is the main takeaway here,and it's like how it, and then
ultimately like I'm gonnaactually I'm not just gonna stop
here.
Kelly, did you have anythingyou wanted to add?

Speaker 4 (22:03):
Well, I just I more just had a question, I guess
more for Brie.
Like I, I never changed mybirth certificate because I just
didn't think it was a big deal,because no one ever sees my
birth certificate and ever sinceI got my license they've always
just allowed it to say female.
It's never said male.
So I was like what's the pointin changing my birth certificate
and I never leave the thecountry.
I'm never going to get apassport because I never want to

(22:24):
leave the united states.
Yeah, I, I hate leaving.
I hate the idea of even leaving, like the state, let alone the
country um, so there's not thatmuch to do gotta say oh my god,
don't say that they're gonnacome find me.

Speaker 5 (22:37):
I'll let it go down.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
I'm sorry there's not that much to do, but like's not
that much to do.

Speaker 4 (22:44):
But like, do I have to worry about them forcing,
like when I go to get my licenseupdated when it expires?
Is that a possibility thatthey're going to tell me it has
to say male, even though it saidfemale.
For almost a decade now they'reprobably not going to check.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
I mean.
Well, I don't want tofearmonger here, but depending
on how you parse some of Trump'sstatements, he has said things
like we are going to end genderideology and there's only going
to be two classes and you willbe defined by your natal birth
sex.
So I want to be realistic andsay, yeah, that's a non-zero

(23:21):
possibility.
That's a non-zero possibilityand the reason you know, more
documents are always going tohelp you than fewer documents.
So I just think, like, the moretools you have, the more doors
you can open.
Also, like in a decade, you maywant to do this.
Your passport is just.

(23:42):
It's extremely.
There's such a high bar togetting a passport because they
have to see your birthcertificate and the federal
government does a deep dive onyou.
It's just a generally helpfuldocument to have.
So I think that's just smartand proactive.
Like don't go get a gun, liketrans Twitter is telling you to,
but may consider having apassport.

Speaker 5 (24:05):
That's a helpful, legal like document I will also
say I was able to get passport apassport with the female marker
in texas without change mybirth certificate or anything.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Thank you, hillary clinton she's going to change
that policy.
But you know, the last time Igot one it was before that
change was made and I had nothad GRS yet and it said male on
it, which was really awkward fora lot of reasons.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
So I'm curious for, like, because I've long thought
about this, like you know.
I mean, I'll say I changed mydocuments too, but part of me
thinking about this was like,should documents reflect your
biological sex for, like medicalcases?
I keep hearing this be broughtup, like in the in the more

(24:51):
critical circles that I'm like Idon't have a great response for
it, because it's like, well, insome, in some events, yes, I
think there is a case to be madefor having your biological sex
on your documents.
I think there is a case to bemade for having your biological
sex on your documents.
But I also think, like, if youtake the steps to medically
transition and you want to livethat life, I, it's such a I

(25:12):
don't know, I can't, I can'tparse out like how I really feel
about this.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
I have very little empathy for this view.
If you look at my birthcertificate on there it doesn't
say my biological parents onthere.
I was adopted.
It's got my adoptive parents onthere.
Why did they have that law thatif you adopt a child you can go
change that birth certificateand make you know to put it in
gender critical terms, a legalfiction that they're my

(25:38):
biological parents.
Shouldn't it just reflectreality?
It's like look, the reason is.
Reason is you know the identityof the biological mother.
That's protected.
So it's easier to enroll yourchild in school.
People aren't thinking you'rekidnapping them, so you can help
your child get like legaldocuments or a bank account,
like it's.
The purpose of a birthcertificate is not a scientific

(26:01):
document of what your like sexwas.
You were born with, is yourlegal access to make life easier
in civil society.
And if they want us tointegrate and to blend in, there
are accommodations that we needalong the way.
So this entire project, in myview, it is to turn trans women

(26:23):
into a third class citizen andto make our lives harder.
And I just have I.

Speaker 5 (26:29):
I think it is the most incompassionate argument
I've ever heard I do think, forthe most part, too, you can tell
doctors, like you know, aboutyour natal sex, which I I do
every time.
I do, too, right, I'm trans andso I don't necessarily feel like
I need to have that on mypassport to like prove that.
And I guess there's this kind offringe case where, like maybe

(26:53):
you are unconscious and you'relike brought to the hospital
room and also you've had likesex reassignment surgery, so
like they just really don't knowand then it's like then maybe
there's an issue there.
But also, like there can beissues with like intersex women,
right, who like have, forexample, like some um, what is

(27:14):
called like gendernon-conforming physiology, right
, and they don't even know thatthemselves and like that could
potentially be a problem for adoctor.
So like yeah, I think that likemaybe there's, you know, a rare
instance in which you reallyjust can't like tell the doctor
that, and it's also relevantlike whatever is going on with

(27:35):
you.
But for the most part you areeither conscious or the issue is
like something that, ifanything, you are benefited from
them seeing you as femalebecause you've been taking
hormones and like your body is,you know, going to be best
treated if they give you like anamount of a drug that is
relevant to like women.
Um, because, yeah, becausethat's what your body is it

(27:59):
seems like such an edge case.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
That's half.
I mean, what a much more likelyscenario like the other than
you're unconscious in a hospitalroom.
Much more common thing isyou're trying to get an
apartment yes, yeah, right andyou're showing them your
documents and they just don'twant.
You know trans people livingthere and they discriminate
against you.
Or you got for a job and youknow you've got to show these

(28:22):
documents and itouchie toeveryone and the Whisper Network
starts and you're treateddifferently and you know it
opens up all this harassment anddiscrimination in your life.
My life was so much better whenI was stealth.
I'm just 100% going to be realwith you.
I regret not just becoming apublic figure so much of the

(28:43):
time, but like coming forward tojust talk about this stuff
honestly.
It has done nothing good for mylife at all except my
friendship with the three of youand being like the idea that
every single trans person has toget outed in all those
situations.
It's just cruel.
Like let us transition and moveon with life.

(29:05):
My DMs are filled with transwomen who are so thankful for
this show because they agreewith our politics, but they're
stealth and they can't say thisstuff.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
So like let them go have this happy lives.
Yeah, I'm curious, kelly.
Did you have anything youwanted to add to the question,
or I just want to check.

Speaker 4 (29:24):
Well, you know, before Brie like brought up the
good point of just like you know, applying to jobs or getting
apartments, I was going to belike, oh, why shouldn't it just
say transsexual, female, pre orpost op, you know?
Because that's still validatingthat you're.
You know your gender, but alsosex, whatever who you are now

(29:47):
and also just like saying, likeyour medical info.
So if you are passed out, likethey know exactly, like what you
are and like what to give you.
But yeah, I think you guys areright, like in 99% of cases,
it's just better for it toreflect like who you are and not
like go into those detailsabout if you're trans or not.
So, yeah, I, I think it should,I think we should be able to
change it and I don't think itshould be like a big deal,
especially if someone is likeactually making the transition,

(30:08):
I think, where we get into likethe gray areas when people are
allowed to like change thosethings without doing almost
anything at all.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
Yes, can I say unequivocally where I was
thinking?

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yes, if you are not on a medical pathway, meaning
HRT at a bare minimum.
Like I understand yoursituation, Sky and Taff, is a
little different.
You didn't go full on like Idid.
Yeah, I'm willing to make thoseaccommodations, but if you're
not on a medical pathway, uh-uh,no documents changed.

(30:39):
That's the dumbest thing I'veever heard.
You know, the self ID stuff isa cancer and puts all of us at
risk, in my view.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
So yeah, I will say I , I I appreciate what the the
argument you made brief,fundamentally about functioning
in society.
That's the purpose of the legaldocument there.
And and when it comes to like,where I think about um, where I
interact with like legaldocumentation ever, it's always
the same one, which is can I seeyour id for this drink?

(31:08):
You know, before you can likeactually get your alcohol or
whatever, and then you show themyour id and then, like I
remember I used to be like, ohyeah, here it is and it would
like and and then they wouldlike.
You know if they, if they werepaying attention, they would
catch the m and they'd be likewhat and I could tell if they
noticed.
They noticed it, cause they'dalways give this like look and I
was actually kind of funny,like it didn't really, it didn't

(31:29):
really bother me so much, butit was like now it's just, you
know I don't deal with that andit's kind of nice, it's like you
know I can just move moreseamlessly and I think that's
the goal that should be the goalright of what it means to
transition is just to integrateand move in society more
seamlessly and it's like we justgot to get back to that and
that's, and well, anyways,that's the whole thing.

Speaker 5 (31:52):
So my license says I'm on it, so really, that
doesn't bother you like?

Speaker 4 (31:58):
do you get anxiety when you get like pulled over or
something?

Speaker 5 (32:03):
I mean, I've only ever been pulled over once and
it was fine.
Um, I do think sometimes, likeat a liquor store or something,
I've like presented the ID and Ihave seen like the kind of
double take go on in their head.
Uh, so I totally relate, skylar, but like it.
Just it doesn't come up withmost things.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Did you ever have a problem with someone refusing it
and not believing it's youCause I did have that once.
Yeah, I'm curious like ifyou've ever yeah.

Speaker 5 (32:31):
Yeah, I have had that as well, where people are like,
are you sure this is you, andI'm like, yeah, I'm sure.

Speaker 1 (32:39):
No, it's my twin brother.

Speaker 4 (32:45):
Well, the picture, doesn't you, I would assume,
like the picture, doesn't you?

Speaker 5 (32:48):
I would assume, like the picture would still tell
them.
It's you right, or is this likeyou're talking?
The picture is also from when Iwas like 16.

Speaker 4 (32:52):
So yeah, oh well, you have to update it like every
three years.
How long does your license have?
Does it like differ state tostate?
Because I feel like I have tolike update mine every like four
years it might be.

Speaker 5 (33:05):
It might be different state to state.
I haven't been asked to do it,I guess, so yeah so don't panic
everyone.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
It's gonna be okay, like I.
I know it's scary right now.
I know it's depressing, butit's.
You will get through this.
We got through the trump yearslike um.
Honestly, don't panic, don'tlisten to trans twitter, but I
think now's a good time to getyour any unfinished business

(33:32):
done.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
This would be a good time to think about that it
wasn't so extreme, though, in2016, like I started my
transition then, and I don'tremember like having these fears
be thrown around back then.
You know right well, we're apolitical target yeah, we hadn't
.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
They hadn't swung so far to the left, and that's now
that that time has happened andwe've had all those events.
Politically and culturally it'sit's swinging back the other
way and that's how it was ableto be a cultural issue for this
election.

Speaker 5 (34:01):
Thankfully, now that we've had, you know, five years
of trans activism, after weswitched gay marriage to trans
stuff being the main focus,thankfully things are, you know,
so much better for trans peopleand we're definitely not way
more of a target, thanks tothese activists.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
So that's.
Another fear of mine too islike I mean I know we're kind of
like ending the topic, but it'slike with project 2025 saying
they're ending gay marriage.
I know that means like they'regonna like target us and count
that as gay marriage.
And it's like I, I want to getmarried, then the next like year
, I want to adopt and have afamily and it's like I don't, I
don't know if they're gonna tryto ban that, like that's such a

(34:41):
scary thought to me you knowit's a non-zero chance.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Just being real with you, I worry about this all the
time.
Texas, uh, you know, rolledback legal uh, gender changes.
Um, yeah, they're consideringsending out new ids with the the
old gender marker on it.
Um, I got married in californiabut if they do something
nationally, mean could they likeinvalidate my marriage?
I think about that all the time.

(35:07):
So I think you know Barry Weiss, I was on her free press's
election stream on electionnight and she said something
I've been thinking about a lotwhere I think, with a lot of
liberals particularly, there's akind of idealistic sense that
the arc always swings towardsjustice and that's not true.

(35:29):
If you look at history, thereare plenty of examples of
minorities being targeted andthe swinging really bad for them
, really really quickly.
So again, I'm not saying panic,but I'm saying don't be naive
about what we're up againsteither.

Speaker 4 (35:46):
Right, I just got to clarify.
You're saying that I didn'tthink this was possible.
Even if they did somehow outlawgay marriage, they would be
able to outlaw marriages thatalready have existed at a time
when it was legal.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
It depends on how the Supreme Court adjudicated it.

Speaker 5 (35:59):
Yeah, that's insane.
Again, it's like is that likely?
I don't think.
I don't think she's making aclaim about that, I just think
she's saying it's possible.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
Yeah, it's such a scary thought.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
I mean.
But like moving, that's talkingabout going retroactively and
invalidating mine.
Could they stop that movingforward that's, I don't think
that's unlikely at all, I thinkthe retroactive thing is
unlikely.

Speaker 5 (36:27):
I mean, honestly, even with gay marriage, I think.
You know, I don't, I don't knowif we'll get that annulled
either.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
Um, but yeah, it is possible I could see it would
have to be supreme court is thatright?

Speaker 1 (36:37):
I mean because supreme court was the ruling
that made it in 2016, so itwould have to be all the way,
yeah I'm not saying it'simpossible, but it just it
really is a stretch to go thatfar.
I think the trans stuff is alot more likely to be where this
kind of shakes out I think, sky, I love you, you're my friend.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
I think you have a reflexive trust of the
republicans and I just don'tshare that optimism, but but I
hope you're right.

Speaker 5 (37:04):
I'm also not Okay.
Yeah, I guess I'm kind of morein the sky's camp on this.
I think it'll probably be muchless fun than Democrats are
expecting it to be.
Doesn't mean that likeeverything is going to be, you
know, flowers and rainbows,especially on certain trans
things.
But I think I am cautiouslyhopeful not optimistic, but

(37:27):
hopeful about the next fouryears.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (37:31):
See how it goes.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
I think so.
All right, okay, this has beena little sad, a little
depressing.
Let's switch gears.
Let's kind of let's pivot tohow?
About a topic where what did wedo this week that absolutely
had no connection to theelection?
What did we do this week thatabsolutely had no connection to
the election?
What?
What did we do to decompressand, let's say, get outside or
do something different?
Well, I can say, let me startthis one off.

(37:54):
I, I I feel inclined to becauseI mean, you know, even though,
like, things didn't reallynecessarily go well with the
election, one of the things Idid was went hiking.
I don't know if you all likegoing outside, but the leaves
are changing, it's beautiful,and so we thought we would take
a trip out to a nearby townthat's not too far away, but

(38:17):
it's a little bit more to therural area and we did this
hiking path.
It was a trail called highbridge trail park and it's
essentially this huge, like hugeum path that they changed into.
It used to be um a railroadtrack and then they turned it
into just a regular walkingtrail.

(38:39):
And I don't know about you all,but like, getting out from
online is like my way offreshening myself up.
It's like because the onlinespace where you, you touched on
this, how negative it is, andlike coming out online.
That's definitely been part ofmy experience too, because
before that, when you're stealth, like you don't get the hate
because people are there inperson with you, like that

(39:02):
element of humanity is is justthere in person when it's not
online and you have all theseanonymous warriors person with
you, like that element ofhumanity is is just there in
person when it's not online andyou have all these you know
anonymous warriors coming afteryou, um and so like.
For me, just walking aroundoutside, like I saw so many cute
dogs and then parents waswalking by and and one of the
things that I love abouttransition this is such a
superficial thing, but itactually really connects with me

(39:24):
.
It's just walking by, all theladies see me and they smile and
they wave and I'm like, hey,it's so fun.
I don't know.
I just love being out in likereal life and it's definitely
the way to escape, like theanxiety of what online will do
to you if you're on so often.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
I shouldn't admit this because I'm married.
One of my favorite things I'lltransition isn't the ladies.
It's like when I was so I left,I had an early morning hit and
then I went straight over to LAX.
My makeup is done, I've gottendressed really well and just
marching to the airport, I'vegot gorgeous shoes on gorgeous
dress and guys are looking at me.
I just love like looking at himback and giving him a smile.

(40:15):
So you know I'm married but I'mnot dead.
Oh my god, don't tell frank Iwill.
You'll never see this.
He doesn't see dollcast.
Um, this is something I did.
Is?
There's a boston startup calledlove pop and these are all
paper flowers, so it's at theAmtrak station.
So I splurged a bunch of moneyand got some flowers for my
office, and I also spent athousand dollars on Gucci boots

(40:36):
this year.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
So that's quite the purchase you'll have to show us
at some point.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
I will I like to buy like one thing that will like
last a long time, instead of,like you know, cheap, disposable
stuff.
Yeah, tell myself it's for theenvironment.
Like this is so much better, soyeah, Do any of y'all like
cooking?

Speaker 1 (40:58):
Yes, I love to cook.
Yes, great, that's awesome.
Yeah, my partner and I love todo it like together as a pastime
, and we cooked a new dish thisweek.
It was called taiwanese braisedpork rice.
Really good is it was so good,I don't know.
Do you all know five spice, thefive spice powder?
no, no, okay, yeah, it's likeit's kind of this aromatic, um,

(41:18):
flavorful spice that's not in alot of dishes and I think that's
what really defines this oneflavorful spice that's not in a
lot of dishes and I think that'swhat really defines this one
for me, because it's like, Idon't know, it's cloves,
cinnamon and then there's acouple other things, but it
makes the pork really taste.
It tastes amazing and, honestly, it just I don't know.

(41:39):
I like sinking my time intothings like food because it's I
mean, who?

Speaker 5 (41:47):
doesn't a good, good meal like.
It's just it's such a valuableskill for sure.
Five spices like such a classicof like chinese uh cooking, it
shows up all the time, sodefinitely a good one.
Yeah, I, I wish that, um, mygirlfriend was like more into
cooking.
I definitely I end up doingmost of the meals really cooking
.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
I adore it.
It's my favorite thing to do.

Speaker 5 (42:09):
I do like cooking.
Um, I think it's just in anyrelationship you have to find
like balance, right and so like,if I'm doing the cooking, I
want there to be, like you know,I want her to do like the
dishes or something like that,right, so we're sort of
splitting the roles of um ofdinner, but she, I think she

(42:31):
dislikes dishes more than shedislikes cooking.
So the solution sometimes, moreoften than not, is like taco
bell or something like you havenot put Taco Bell in your body.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Your body is a temple .

Speaker 5 (42:48):
Don't do that At least two times, three times,
four times a week?
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
I got a big girl job.
The first thing I said is I'mnever eating Taco Bell again.

Speaker 5 (42:59):
Well, okay, I have definitely been way more healthy
over the past few months and Istarted exercising for like the
first time in my life and it isgreat, incredible, like I can't
believe that.
I like didn't do this before,but I just like I grew up as
like such a nerdy kid, likealways kind of in the background

(43:20):
with like my nose in a book andI would do like the pacer test
in school and it would hurt, andI was like no, I'm never doing
this.
I think it helped that I waslike I was thin.
I've always been thin, so Inever felt like, oh, it's
necessary for me to work out.
Um terrible strategy in lifeyou should absolutely work out.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
It's not in retrospect.

Speaker 5 (43:40):
I'm like this is amazing Like everyone owes it to
themselves to like see whattheir body is capable, and so it
feels so nice to be like sorein the mornings it's for me,
it's like it's so hard toactually get up and do it,
though, and sustain it like yeahwell, that's been my yeah, I'll
get into it, and I'll get sointo it for like two months,

(44:01):
three months, and then I'll belike something will happen, it
will mess up my routine and thenext thing you know, next the
next week I'm like um, what's?

Speaker 1 (44:08):
another week, skip, no big deal.
And then the next thing youknow, I'm not exercising.

Speaker 5 (44:13):
I will say one thing that really helped me.
Normal is I set up like atracker.
So I use obsidian, which islike personal, you know, note
taking up, and I have it set up.
So so every day when I do likean exercise, I like mark it down
and I created some graphics soI could see, like in the month,
which days I exercise.
And as soon as I did that, Iwas like, oh, I've been kind of

(44:35):
like aligned to myself about howmuch I exercise, because you
can sort of feel like, oh, I'mexercising, and then you
actually look at it and you'relike, oh, I only exercised like
two times that last week andlike that week prior to that I
did no exercise.
And so putting that on like anactual graphic that I look at
every day has made me like soself-aware about like, oh, I

(44:58):
really should do this becauseit's one of my responsibilities
and maybe I missed a day lastweek and so that has helped me.
A ton is just like being ableto see and objectively evaluate
Keeps you accountable.

Speaker 4 (45:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
That's good.
I will say my.
My partner, her company, doesthese like step challenges and
those always fire us up, becausewhen you make it a game and
you're competing with people,it's like now it's just walking,
so it's not like.
You know, walking is greatcardio actually.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yeah, it's underrated , for sure.

Speaker 5 (45:34):
OK, so are you competitive?
Are you pretty competitive,Skylar?

Speaker 1 (45:38):
She is more than me.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Honestly, I'm not, I'm not the most competitive, oh
my goodness it sounds like yeah, sorry no, I was just gonna say
I don't want to give away thegame here, but I feel like the
ghost of christmas feature and Iwant to warn you of what comes,
because I was always liketerrifyingly underweight when I
was, like you know, teenager in20, and then your metabolism

(46:03):
slows down, especially your 40s,if you don't like there's a
reason like so many people areoverweight when they get older.
So I don't know.
I think like getting into thishabit when you're younger will
really set you up for success asyou you get older.
So I think it's actually reallyimportant.

(46:26):
I love running, for whateverreason.
I've got the addiction gene andlike running just swear to God,
it gets me higher and makes mefeel better than any other drug
I've ever tried to be honest.
But Peloton is also really good.
I mean, I don't know, just findsomething you like and never
give it up.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Kelly, do you do exercise?

Speaker 4 (46:48):
Not really.
When I was in Florida, I wouldgo to like trails a lot and go
for walks and, honestly, beforewe moved to Florida I would.
I would go on trails all thetime too and just like walk and
it was honestly more to justlike listen to music and clear
my head than it was for theexercise.
Um, but yeah, ever since wemoved from Florida back here
it's been like a year I justkind of stopped and I haven't

(47:09):
been doing it for forever and Ifeel like I need to you guys
really inspiring me to like goout and do a lot.
I'll probably do it after this.
I feel like I've gotten intothis mindset of just staying in
the house all the time andconstantly being on social media
and it's just not good for mymental health at all.
But, honestly, what brie saidis kind of scaring me because

(47:30):
I'm like god, yeah, I havealways been like like
underweight and like I haven'treally had to like watch what I
eat and I'm scared that by thetime I hit like 30, like it's
not going to be like thatanymore and I probably should
get in the habit of likeexercising so I don't gain a ton
of weight the habit is crucialfor sure, because, like skylar
is saying, it's really hard tomotivate yourself.

Speaker 5 (47:48):
Exercise is like the worst to motivate yourself,
because every part of yourbiology is like geared to make
sure you're not expending likeuseless energy.
Because that's like survivalright, like true, yeah, um,
we're just like programmed toavoid that, and so you have to
make it like a habit so thatyou're not having to use
willpower to do it.
You just like programmed toavoid that, and so you have to
make it like a habit so thatyou're not having to use
willpower to do it.
You just like have the urge todo it automatically, right?

Speaker 4 (48:13):
I was kind of weird for me.
I don't know if you guysprobably won't relate to this at
all, but when I was like a kidI had a really bad habit of just
like finding places to likepace around in a circle and like
listen music and I eventuallyand I would sometimes like do it
on like the swing set too, andI was like really younger and I
felt like the older I got peoplewould look at me like I was
crazy for doing that.
So I that's kind of whatstarted me like going on for

(48:35):
walks on trails was like Iwanted a way to do that without
like looking psychotic or like Iactually have a story about
this is going to be like Iactually have a story about this
is going to be like soembarrassing.

Speaker 5 (48:45):
When I was in elementary school, it was like a
snowy day and I was just likepacing around the playground
over and over and I was doingthat for a while and it occurred
to me like I've been out herefor a long time and then I like
looked up and I saw that therewere no other kids out there and
I had just like stayed out inthe snow walking in circles for

(49:08):
like an extra 30 minutes pastrecess and eventually someone
was like oh, we forgot about TAP, and they like came out and
like got me.
That's like.
That was like my elementaryschool experience, just like
pacing around, um, and theneventually they're like oh my
god, we're, we've lost a childoh, gosh, oh yeah, not only do I

(49:32):
relate, I don't know what it is.

Speaker 4 (49:34):
It like clears my mind, but like my mom would
always get on me because she'dbe like oh my god, why are you
pacing?
It's giving me anxiety and Iwas like it's taking away my
anxiety.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yes, I do the same thing.
When I'm on like high stakesphone calls, like I will just
pace all around my apartment,I'm sure, if you put a camera on
me like I'm sounding calm but Ilook psychotic.

Speaker 5 (49:53):
So I 100% understand what you mean you have to get
out that like anxious energy.
Yeah, yeah, that's what it is,I think it.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
And now we have a very special guest joining us
here Colin Wright, the writer ofReality's Last Stand.
He's an evolutionary biologistand writer of Reality's Last
Stand, where he examines issuesat the intersection of biology
and society.
With his scientific background,colin brings a perspective
rooted in biology, oftenchallenging popular narratives

(50:25):
around identity and science.
Colin, welcome to the show.

Speaker 6 (50:29):
I am really glad to be here.
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
It's really exciting.
So, colin, you know we musthave had five or six team
meetings getting ready for this,maybe five or six.
We talked a lot about this, youknow.
I guess I just I want to bereally honest with you.
I feel because it's like I knowwe've talked about this I feel

(50:53):
so strongly that conversationswith people I don't want to say
on the other side, butconversations with people that
have questions or a differentidea about policy, it is so
necessary, like this war wherewe are just screaming at each
other and each side has itsextremists, it's not serving the
public policy conversation.

(51:13):
The risk I think today is, youknow, having someone like you on
the show.
If we just sit here the wholetime and find the areas where we
agree on, I really worry that'sgoing to come off as like a
complete rubber stamp on yourentire political project where I
don't like agree with you oneverything.
And you know I also don't wantto sit here and have like a

(51:36):
destiny style debate with you.
So does that make sense to you?
Like, what kind of conversationwere you thinking we should
have today?

Speaker 6 (51:43):
Yeah, no, that makes sense to me.
I mean, I'm I'm totally happyto talk about areas of overlap
where we agree.
I think those are often goodplaces to, you know, start to
ground us, to make sure that youknow we're not just sworn
enemies.
We have a lot of overlap inwhat we think should be done,
how things are, and, yeah, it'salso fun to explore the

(52:04):
differences.
I mean, be done how things areand, yeah, it's also fun to
explore the differences.
I mean that's what I like thebest.
I used to sort of be in theseclubs when I was in college,
like these atheist clubs, and itwas so boring to me because all
we did is talk about the thingswe agreed on.
It was just like, yeah, we'reall atheists, we don't agree
that God exists and all thisstuff, and it's just like what's
the point of having a meetingof a bunch of people just to

(52:24):
talk about things we alreadyagree on?
So I always liked exploring theareas, like, okay, we all agree
on this one thing.
Well, what are the things wedisagree on?
And now that we know, comingfrom a shared sort of place, we
can explore those withoutoffending people and things like
that.
So I think a little bit of both.
Yeah, we need to have theoverlap and then show where we
disagree.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
So you know my Twitter.
I assume you follow Sky as welland Taff and Kelly.
Where, in your view, do youthink you kind of agree with our
political project?
Where do you perceive theoverlap as?

Speaker 6 (52:56):
being the other people as much as I am with you,
brianna.
I see your stuff all the timein my feed and I think where I
agree with you most, the reasonI find myself constantly hitting
like on your posts is becauseyou seem to be calling out more

(53:17):
of an ideological turn that alot of the trans movement has
made in the last decade or so.
Uh, that has sort of expandedwhat it means to be trans into
just oblivion where, like, it'sjust encompassing common sex,
non-conformity and things likethat.
Um, the the existence ofnon-binary as a category, I
think, reveals the ideologicalshift.

(53:38):
I think that really shows sortof that.
It is an ideological thing.
It's not just like, um, sort ofthe older we used to refer to as
transsexuals, uh, for peoplewho are understand their sex and
who are just saying, like I'mreally distressed and I want to
take steps to appear as theopposite sex because this helps
me live, move through the worldcomfortably, um, and that's

(54:00):
something I have have no, noissue with.
Uh, whereas now we have sort ofthis ideological shift that
goes into a lot of pseudoscienceabout the sex, whether it's
even real, whether it's binaryor spectrum.
You know brain sex versus, youknow, sex of different body
parts and brain body mismatches.
So I think that's where I kindof saw things going wrong was
with the ideological shift.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
So I just want to pause and make sure trans people
can hear this.
I want to repeat back what Ijust heard because I see you
attacked on this so often.
So I correct to understand thatyour position is someone like
me who had clinical genderdysphoria and as an adult I went
to a doctor, I got a, I gotcertified and I went down a

(54:44):
medical pathway to change mygender.
Well, you know what I mean tolive as a woman right To get HRT
to blend, to live in a way thatfelt authentic to me.
Am I correct to understand yousupport that?
You think that that is helpful?
Is that the gist of it?

Speaker 6 (55:02):
Absolutely.
I think individuals should havethe right to be able to do that
.
When they're adults and canmake these decisions and they
know who they are, they tend toknow what's best for them,
especially if they're dealingwith doctors who can walk them
through this.
As long as I think there shouldbe some medical safeguarding, I
don't think you should just belike I want to just get these

(55:23):
things and then it's just like,well, here you go, and, by the
way, they're all covered byinsurance and there should be
some level of safeguarding tomake sure that people aren't
going to regret what they'redoing.
That's why I kind of criticizethe gender affirming framework,
because it's really just nosafeguarding.
I think if we could shift backto how things were, where there
was a process, and I think itshould be a process.
But I'm not against anyonedoing these things, either if

(55:47):
it's a medical process having areally robust assessment, or if
people want to pay out of pocketfor things.
I'm totally fine with peoplepursuing all sorts of cosmetic
changes to their bodies.
That I have no problem with.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
To me, my main focus is on children, mainly because
of the severity of the changesthat we're talking about, and
I'll let other people go, but Ijust want to say really quickly,
this is where I really, reallyagree with you, and I think my
co-hosts do as well, because,like I strongly believe that
that medical safeguarding Ithink the community has framed
all of that as being oppressionand I don't think that that's
true.
I think this is really apparentin the AGP discussion.

(56:27):
I'm saying this not like anyjudgment of anyone with that,
but not every single person withauto-sexuality needs to
transition and is going to beserved with that.
I think they deserve ahealthcare system where they
will be able to sit down with atherapist that actually
understands these concepts andcan walk them through that and
explore other things to find outif maybe there are things less

(56:49):
extreme that would help themhave a good life and alleviate
that dysphoria.
I think that, like avoiding thepolitical problem of Chloe
Coles coming along, I thinkthat's very much in the trans
public interest.
So I think like, right, there,we've got a lot of overlap.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
No, I just yeah.
Yeah, colin, I don't know ifyou remember me I I imagine you
probably don't.

Speaker 6 (57:10):
I'm sure you have like a gen spec we met each
other at gen spec, right?
Okay, yes, we did.
Yes, yes I can't.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
I listened to your, your speech there, or like your
presentation, um, about like thevalue of biology when it comes
to understanding how to shapelaw and all these various things
.
They're just the fundamentalsabout human understanding and I
mean I came up to you andthanked you for it because I had
no idea how pervasive it wasthat at universities you weren't

(57:37):
even being allowed to talkopenly about these concepts of
just basic biology, at leastfrom my point of view.
And it's like I I am so againstthat freedom, Like whenever I
see that restriction of speechin an environment like like
academia, where we should beinviting contradictory opinions.
That's how you reach truth,that's how you get closer to

(57:59):
understanding the opposite ofyour side, it, it.
It brings me back to JohnStuart Mill who makes that, who
makes that statement about onewho only knows their side, knows
little of that.
And I just think again of likethat is like one of my, one of
my core guiding principles andit's like I think that's where I

(58:19):
see a lot of red flags with thetrans ideology stuff kind of
going off the rails is exactlywhen you start seeing that
protection of, oh, we can't haveany discussion on this, it's
scary, it's not going to help,it's going to, you know, attack
our own side.
And so I.
That was really eye opening tome when you shared that at the

(58:40):
Genspec conference and I wasgrateful that at least you know
we're gaining some traction inthe discussions from that
perspective and my hope is thatwe'll see more of a overlap or a
mutuality in having those likeconversations between you know
your perspective, or like theperspective of biology, and then
seeing like where that canintersect.

(59:01):
You know people that maybe havean experience that seems a
little bit, you know,contradictory or seems, you know
, it seems to put it at oddswith some of those basic tenets.

Speaker 6 (59:12):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, my main project has been trying
to clarify the biology of sex onthis issue, because that's what
kind of got me out of my laband posting on Twitter in the
first place.
Is people saying wrong thingsabout sex.
Me out of my lab and posting onTwitter in the first place is
people saying wrong things aboutsex.
And I feel like if we could alljust get to a point where, as
long as we're making sane noisesabout what the biology is, then

(59:33):
we can actually talk aboutother aspects of transitioning
and things like that.
I just view a lot of what'shappening now as people basing
transitioning on these franklypseudoscientific ideas of you
know, literally being able tochange your sex through certain
certain things.
And I think a lot of peopleespecially you know younger
people I know talking to chloecole and stuff like they they

(59:55):
literally thought in their mindthat they could, they could,
they could change their sexliterally and um.
So I just think this sort ofbeing misinformed is is where I
I'm trying to focus my effortsand but colin, this is where.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
I think my political project differs from yours
respectfully, because this is acritique I have of you.
I've thought about this so muchthis week that I understand,
like I have no delusions.
I am a natal male that hastaken a course of like
alterations to my body to appearfemale when I'm in public.

(01:00:27):
I have no illusions about that.
But what I think the gendercritical conversation, the
gender critical crowd, does is Ithink they take that simple
reality, which I actually don'tthink as many people are
confused about as you do.
I disagree that most peoplethink this and I think you hyper

(01:00:48):
focus on one area of this tomake a whole host of arguments.
And let's also not pretend thatthey don't use that fact to
talk about us and frame us asthough we are these hostile
rapist invaders trying to takeover women.
And I think if you're liketaking one scientific point and

(01:01:08):
saying this is the onlyscientific point, well, I could
do that right back to you.
In fact, trans people do thisall the time.
What they'll say is look, we'vegot these self-reported studies
over here that show that.
You know, transition helpsalleviate gender dysphoria and
you can show that all day long.
And the science is very, veryclear on this that this will

(01:01:28):
give someone like at least inthe short term, a self-reported
answer on the survey.
And I could come back to thatand say what.
You want to deny that thisscience is real.
You want to pretend thisdoesn't exist.
How dare you?
I just want to be here and havea scientific conversation.
I can show you research all daylong that shows if you call a
trans woman he and don't affirmher that this is psychologically

(01:01:50):
damaging, why are you trying topursue a false scientific
agenda?
So I think, like the science,there's a broad array of facts
that, as public policyprofessionals, we have to look
at, not just this one thing, andI also think it's not the
entire point.
The point is not are transwomen biological women?

(01:02:12):
That's not the question, it'sdo trans women deserve dignity
and access to the publiccomments?
Because so much of the publicpolicy being argued, I have to
be honest, is so shockinglysimilar to the segregationist
policies I saw advocated byelected officials in Mississippi

(01:02:33):
in the 90s when I was growingup.
So I think I'm entirely happyto cede the scientific argument.
What I want to get to is thepublic policy discussion, which
is where I think it's reallyimportant.

Speaker 6 (01:02:47):
Yeah, I think that's important.
I tend to focus on thebiological aspect, mainly
because I think that it is sortof used as a premise for, you
know, everything seems to flowfrom that initial premise of
sort of the sex spectrum andnegating the sex binary.
But, yeah, I do agree that atsome point the real discussion
is likeating the sex binary.
But, yeah, I do agree that atsome point the real discussion

(01:03:08):
is like, well, okay, well, whatdo we do about it in public
policy and things like that?
That's where the sort of rubbermeets the road and this is
where I like to distinguishbetween, you know, biological
sex, and clearly sex is also alegal category that we've placed
around it.
And so, you know, how do wecorrelate biological sex to

(01:03:31):
legal sex and maybe things likewhat counts as being a woman or
a female for sake of sport, andI'm not necessarily under the
impression that they should allbe the same, even if there
should be massive, massiveoverlap between them all.
I think, yeah, there areinteresting things around the
edges of where we can say wherecan exceptions be made, and I

(01:03:52):
think those are areas we shouldtalk about potentially.
And I'm not going to claim Ihave all of the answers to, and
just like a, here's a perfectthing.
I think sometimes we have tosort of deal with a situation
that's sort of like the perfectthing.
I think sometimes we have tosort of deal with a situation
that's sort of like the best,the least bad out situation,

(01:04:13):
because I don't think there'snecessarily a like a silver
bullet solution to a lot ofthings, but I think some some
solutions or proposed solutionsare better or worse than others.
So yeah, I'm happy to talkabout any of those things for
sure.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
I will let my other co-hosts speak out any of those
things.

Speaker 5 (01:04:27):
For sure I won't let my other co-hosts speak.
Well, yeah, this is somethingthat I talked about before you
got in here, but my biggestworry was that we would end up
agreeing on like too much in thediscussion, because I am
someone who has been likeraising flags in the trans
community for years about someof the shoddy science around,
specifically HRT for minors, andso I've been in like heated

(01:04:51):
debates about this and everytime I've been like shut down,
totally shut down, by the transcommunity.
It's very frustrating because Ifeel like my community, and
especially the Democrats, havesort of decided that they're
going to die on this hill andthat the science doesn't even
need to be like explored more,like it's just settled, there's

(01:05:13):
no more debate, and you know, Idon't think that's ultimately a
message that's resonating withpeople.
I think that parents really dosee these detransitioners and
they really do care that affectsthem, and then they go and vote
and at the end of the day, Ifeel like I'm getting like
deeply affected by this becausepeople who claim to represent me

(01:05:33):
you know, in politics the leftare sort of failing to actually
do their job of rigorouslyexploring what reality is,
rather than kind of pretendingwhat they'd like it to be.
So that's always been afrustration for me, I think.
At the same time, I think that Ican imagine there being

(01:05:53):
opportunities for minors totransition in the same way that,
like you know, I think I have avery similar perspective on
adult transition to you.
But I think for minors, I thinkthat a huge problem is just the
ability to actuallyconceptualize what they're doing
and to properly consent to it.
And to the extent that thestudies kind of show like null

(01:06:17):
results, there are like outlierswithin those studies who show
positive results.
So I think that there's maybean opportunity for a rigorous
gatekeeping process, somethingwhere medical professionals who
are free from the political biasof you know rubber stamping HRT
prescriptions, are allowed totruly interrogate like is this

(01:06:38):
person a good candidate?
And I don't know what age thatmight be?
Like 16 is something that getsthrown around a lot.
As far as like when that mightbe appropriate.
That seems like plausible to me.
I wonder you, as the expert onall this stuff, the biology, if
you think that's possible or ifyou think it's just too fraught
to potentially go down that road.

Speaker 6 (01:07:15):
It's really difficult because we can see that the
existence of people who areadults and who've transitioned
and who are happy with theirtransition and remain
transitioned for their entirelives.
I think a lot of people can saythat this person would have
probably benefited if they couldmaybe pass more if they had
been able to transition at ayounger age, before they got
these differences from puberty.
I think that is a truestatement, but the difficulty is
, is that just because some ofthese people would have
benefited, this this sort ofsets the stage for people to

(01:07:37):
want to go back and say, like,well, how can we identify these
people before puberty, at ayoung age, in order, so we can
make sure that we get thosepeople?
But the difficulty is is that,while it's easy to look back in
hindsight to say that, like youknow, oh, I'm somebody who would
have benefited from this it'sreally, really difficult and
really, really inaccurate tohave a, you know, a pool of 11,

(01:08:00):
12 year olds and be able topredict with really, really high
accuracy which ones are goingto be those ones that are happy
with it through the rest oftheir lives.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
Do you really think so, colin, because if you go
look at the DSM standards, likeit's been lowered to two out of
six criteria.
Two out of six, which is justinsane to me and like if you go
read the standards from 1998,we'll put it in the show notes.
It was such a higher standard.
So I actually think like we doknow a lot about what boys that

(01:08:37):
want to be girls look like.
Like there are case studies ofa very typical transsexual like
journey and I do imagine that ifyou get the politics out of
this like I do think there's away to go and do really good
studies and move back to theseolder standards and start like

(01:08:59):
someone that has two out of sixcriteria.
I do not support themtransitioning as a minor.
If someone's got six out of sixand they're going through a
major depressive episode andthey have an eating disorder
because they're trying to makethemselves thin, because they're
terrified of, like you know,masculinizing and you know
they've got suicidal ideation, Ithink symptomology like

(01:09:23):
indicates treatment and to methat is a much stronger argument
for intervention at that point.

Speaker 6 (01:09:29):
Yeah, I mean, it depends where we want to draw a
line on.
You know, how much bycatchcollateral damage are we willing
to accept in here?
How many, how many kids are wewilling to unnecessarily and
wrongfully transition that wouldmake them sterile, in order to
capture all the individuals whowould receive a benefit?
And how much is the harm that'sdone to those who are done

(01:09:51):
wrongfully?
How much is that harm offset bythe benefits that is done by
those who go through it and endup happy with it?

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
And then there's the opposite argument, like how many
trans children becoming someonewho cannot pass and are going
to have really difficult lives?
What human cost of that is okay?
How many trans children like Iwent to rehab I have no idea how
I didn't die, um, from all thedrugs I took how many kids with

(01:10:19):
like a major depressive episodethat commit suicide, like leela
al?
How many of those kids are wewilling to loss?
And like, I think some of theframing I find so frustrating is
where we always talk about,like the cis children that may
not get the perfect outcome thatthey want as the focus, and the
trans lives are kind of talkedabout like they're disposable

(01:10:41):
and it feels really dehumanizingto me if that makes sense.

Speaker 5 (01:10:46):
Well, I feel like, if anything at least, in the trans
community the focus is fullylike on the trans kids and it's
like very rare for thosedetransitioners to even enter
into the conversation.
I do think within the medicalprofession there's a very like
natural lean or inclinationtowards not taking an
intervention, if you canpotentially avoid that, and

(01:11:08):
we're talking about like falsepositives and false negatives.
I mean, if the doctor is goingto prescribe HRT, they're taking
on like a big responsibility, Ithink, ethically, for the
results of that.
And so if you do get thesedetransitioners, that seems to
be really bad in a way that,like you know, adults, they can
take on all of that moral,ethical responsibility, or at

(01:11:28):
least most of it themselves.
And so with kids it's it's ahuge, hugely different
environment.

Speaker 4 (01:11:34):
Do you not think like a huge piece of it might be how
some of these therapists that,in my opinion, are extremely
underqualified and barely haveany experience borderline, don't
even have a are able todiagnose these kids with gender
dysphoria, when I feel like itshould be left up to, probably
more like psychiatrists andpeople that have a little more
experience?

Speaker 6 (01:11:55):
Yeah, well, I think the main issue is with the
gender affirming model of carethat is, you know, basically
doesn't have these safeguards.
It's essentially, you know,basically doesn't have these
safeguards.
It's, it's essentially, youknow, if the kid identifies as a
certain way, then that's,that's how they identify.
There's there's not really alot of pushback that can happen
with respect to someone makingthese certain claims.

(01:12:15):
And you know we do have anissue in the, in the culture too
, because we have, if you lookat the medical community, it is
especially in trans medicine.
It's filled with genderaffirming practitioners.
It's also in the culture.
It's in the water, as you know,to whatever degree it can be
called a social contagion justadopting these trans identities

(01:12:36):
because of the ideological shiftthat we've experienced,

(01:13:05):
no-transcript lives.
But you can't see how happy theywould been if, say, they didn't
, if they maybe would havedesisted, because there is this,
this sort of inertia that asocial transition has, puberty
blockers, has cross sex hormones.
They kind of lock people in, uh, make them more difficult for

(01:13:25):
people to desist, and so it'shard to control for that.
To know that, you know, maybethey would have been happy
either way and you know, allelse being equal, if they would
have been happy withouttransitioning.
Well, now that at least theyhave their, uh, their fertility
in this other scenario too.
So it's, it's, it's reallydifficult.
I mean, it's so difficult withkids.
That's why my personal view isthat we shouldn't be doing

(01:13:49):
puberty blockers and cross-sexhormones to adolescents, and it
should be reserved for peoplewho are 18 or older.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
But even they still deserve.
Really, you would completelyban it for all, even MTFs, even
though they have a much lowerissue rate.

Speaker 6 (01:14:07):
I would.
I would have it for people whoturn 18.
And even when you're 18, youdeserve to have actual
assessments.
It shouldn't just be genderaffirming A total ban.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
For a total ban on this.
100%, no exceptions.
Parents do not have the rightto.
They've got a child.
Major depressive episode,suicidal ideation, has been
saying they want to be a girlsince they're three, they hit
puberty, they're terrified,their body is becoming like a
linebacker.
You want a total ban in thatcase for minors.

Speaker 6 (01:14:41):
I do I don't think, think the evidence is in there
that shows that this is areliable will reliably improve
their lives in the long run.

Speaker 4 (01:14:58):
We've got Kelly and Telf here today.
They seem pretty happy life.
I don't I don't see myself everdetransitioning.
But you know I I'd be lying ifI didn't say, like a piece to me
sometimes things, wow, if Iwasn't given testosterone
blockers at 15, like would Ihave grown out of it by the time
I was 18?
I don't know, probably not inmy opinion, but how much of that
is because I was on thoseblockers and because I'm on
estrogen now and because I'mpost-op like I, I don't know how

(01:15:19):
my mind has been affectedbecause of those things, even
though I do feel like I have avery happy, successful life now.
So yeah, but it's a catch 22 forme too, because then I also
think, well, what if it itdidn't like go away and I still
felt that way into my adulthoodand then I would have developed
even more and I would havepassed less.
And and unfortunately it justkind of seems like in this

(01:15:40):
society, the more you pass, thebetter you're treated, the more
respect you get.
And even now when I feel like Isomewhat pass, I feel like I
still get treated like shit andjudged for how I look.
So I can only imagine how muchworse it would be if I had to
develop more.
So it just sucks because Idon't really know what the
answer is, because there's nomagical test to it, like tell if
you're trans or not, and Ireally wish there was, because I

(01:16:02):
feel like it would like solveso many of these issues.

Speaker 6 (01:16:05):
Yeah, so I don't I don't deny that there's
individuals who do benefit inthe longterm, like I, the I just
have.
There's an issue with pointingto individuals and saying, well,
what about this person youwould have?
You would have told them theycouldn't.
It's like, well, if we'retalking about like a medical
protocol and what we do, wecan't just base it on.
You know, someone I know whowould have benefited from it.
It has to be there has to begood evidence of long term

(01:16:30):
outcomes, but it feels likethere's a double standard that
you're applying here where transchild is just acceptable,
losses meet for the machine.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
Like I feel like I don't mean to be emotional, but
it's really hard to hear the waypeople talk about us, like our
lives don't matter.
And you know, I can point to 20drugs right now that went
through and got to marketbecause there was a lot of money
in there for a um, for apharmaceutical company in
bringing that to market.

(01:16:58):
Where the science showed theefficacy was not so great oh,
the one for female arousal toincrease, that it's a
statistical blip.
This is not a great drug.
It's amazing it went to market.
But we look at that and like weweigh those outcomes like this
is going to help more peoplethan it hurts and those drugs

(01:17:18):
come to market.
There are all kinds of things inmedicine that have much more
shaky efficacy thangender-affirming medicine.
So I feel like, rather thangoing to this extremist solution
that takes those options out ofparents' hands, what I think
the right solution is.

(01:17:38):
I fully agree with you, colin.
Wpath.
Getting radicalized in the last10 years is the worst thing
that has ever happened to mycommunity.
It is terrible.
You're 100% right.
That's a bunch of fringeleftists with crazy ideas.
This expansion of givingsurgery to people with
non-binary.

(01:17:58):
I have looked up and down forany justification that giving a
biological male that thinksthey're non-binary, breast
implants and a full beard andletting them go on estrogen
becoming this thing in themiddle leads to any good
healthcare outcome which our taxdollars pay for.
I don't think this scienceexists yet.

(01:18:19):
The DSM has been rewritten toencourage that.
So it seems to me that, ratherthan going to this government
overreach solution, the answerlies in looking at those
standards.
I think WPATH should be thecentral public policy
battlefield.

Speaker 6 (01:18:39):
Just from what I've seen, I don't think that there
is really convincing evidencethat we can reliably know which
kids are going to have long-termbenefit of these interventions.
So that's why I draw a lineright there and I do have one, I
guess.
Area of pushback, I would say,is I personally tend to avoid

(01:19:01):
and this is kind of acontroversial area, but I've
talked to Lior Sapir a lot aboutthis there's a tendency to use
the word trans kids and refer tothese people as something that
they are.
They're like this is a transkid, as something very distinct
from a kid who isn't trans.
I tend to favor using the wordtrans or the modifier trans to

(01:19:24):
mean you know, someone who'sactually taken steps to like
transition, because I think thislabeling kids really young as
trans is sort of sets them apartfrom other kids where I think
you know they should.
Maybe they're flagged as youknow, potentially someone who
will transition later in life,but it's again, it's impossible
to know which of those kids aregoing to be will become that

(01:19:47):
category of trans.

Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
But don't you see how that argument then continues to
people like me?
Because then you've got TERF,twitter, which calls me a trans
identified male.
I'm a natal male, that's just afact.
But I'm a trans woman.
That's what trans women callourselves Like.
The game here is to frame me asmale, to demean me and to push a

(01:20:11):
public policy discussion whereI'm segregated from society.
So I don't have an issue withdoing that with children.
It's just like you have tothink about where the next step
is, if that makes sense to you.
But I want to come back to this, like I really again, I'd love
an answer on this.
Why, to you Like, let's sayI'll be very generous and say it

(01:20:33):
is, five trans kids out of 100regret it.
It's not that, as best as I cantell, like male to female trans
kids, the female to male, I wantto get them just out of the
cohort completely.
Testosterone is so powerful,you can wait till later.
But why is that five childrenwho may regret it, which is a

(01:20:55):
very high number, more importantthan the 95 that are going to
feel like their lives are better?
Because I think that number, ifyou reversed it, how many of
those children are going to feellike their lives are worse from
not transitioning.
Like why does one count?
Why do trans lives not matterand the cis lives do?
That's what I don't understand.

Speaker 6 (01:21:17):
Well, I think all lives matter, but, yeah, I don't
think we have good data tosuggest what the desistance
rates actually are at the moment.
I mean, we have so much loss tofollow up from all the studies
that are performed.
If we had an accurateassessment, I think, if we could
have really clear data and Iknow the Manhattan Institute has

(01:21:40):
a lot of data that they've beenable to purchase and they're
working through making as highas more accurate reports as we
can possibly do on this sure uh,to find out what those rates
are I will say it's 49 and 51.

Speaker 2 (01:21:53):
Okay, 49 kids desist and regret.
51 trans kids feel like itbenefited them.
Why, in that scenario, wouldthe trans kids not matter and
the cis kids would?

Speaker 5 (01:22:04):
that's, that's what I don't understand, interpret,
interpret a little bit with this, I think, what I'm hearing,
colin, and like correct me ifI'm hearing this incorrectly.
It seems like right now we justdon't have strong evidence for
any meaningful positive effectwithin trans kids.
So we've got like surveys,survey data, we've got some

(01:22:25):
studies that are showing likevery small effects that are
beneficial, um, and so we'rehearing this rhetoric, like even
from rihanna you, where you'retalking about like depressive
episodes and suicide.
We don't have evidence that,like hrt lowers suicide risk in
trans kids.
We don't have that evidence.
And we do have evidence thatHRT causes sterilization and

(01:22:46):
causes irreversible body changesand all of that is very well
understood, but the benefit isvery, you know, it's kind of
nebulous, it's hard to pinpointand it's for so many
methodological reasons.
It seems like when you're giventhat opportunity all these kids
who maybe will benefit fromtransition and then you're

(01:23:08):
talking about like this large49% like desistance rate, it
seems like the responsibility ofthe medical provider is to not
intervene and potentially makesomething worse.
I don't know if that's like afair assessment, colin, feel
free to add on to that, but Ithink that's what I'm hearing
from you.

Speaker 6 (01:23:29):
Yeah, I mean it has to do with the severity of the
interventions.
I mean we're gonna have, youknow, wrongfully sterilize.
You know half of the people whoare going through this, you
know this is that's a major,major thing.
These are totally irreversible.
And while I understand that,going through puberty for
someone who's eventually goingto, you know, consistently

(01:23:51):
identify as trans is alsopotentially irreversible.
I mean there are people who aretrans, who do pursue, you know,
certain surgeries and hormonesthat do change parts of their
body.
It's more difficult, I willadmit it's.
It's not that it's easy to be atrans woman and it's going to
be an easy time and it's just asgood.
Trying to make cosmetic changesafter the fact, like that's

(01:24:16):
clearly it's really difficult.
But I would say that if we'regoing to have some sort of
intervention, we have to have apretty reliable evidence that
this is going to beoverwhelmingly beneficial rather
than harmful and permanentchanges to children mixed with
sterilization.
That's just a really hard humpto get over.
To say, you know, pull the.

(01:24:37):
You say, yes, we should bedoing this to kids.
I mean it's again, it's one ofthose situations that it's the
least bad situation because, youknow, until we have a better
idea of desistance rates.
And you know, if we could have,if we, if we could have a
crystal ball where we could knowwhich kids are never going to
regret it from a very early age.
You know, that's something I'dbe open to.

(01:24:58):
I'd say, okay, if we can knowfor sure.
But we, we, we can't, and rightnow we really have no really
good idea of what the level ofdesistence rates, especially
because of the ideological shiftwe've recently experienced.

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
Would you admit that practically, pragmatically let's
say tomorrow you get your way?
President Trump takes you up,like you asked him to, on
Twitter to put you in charge ofthis policy?
You enact a total ban onchildren transitioning.
Would you acknowledge that thevery first thing they are going
to do is to go on like estrogensnot difficult to synthesize and

(01:25:34):
antiandrogens you're not goingto get drugged, sniffing dogs to
find antiandrogens you wouldadmit that, just like abortion
and women going into back alleys, the first thing that's going
to happen is those kids aregoing to turn to Dr Fortune and
they're going to start gettingtheir health care online, and
there's not going to be anendocrinologist.
There's not going to be anyonethere to put any medical

(01:25:59):
safeguarding in place, somethingyou and I both agree on.
You will agree that those kidsare still going to experiment
medically.
There's just not going to be aprovider in the mix, right?

Speaker 6 (01:26:11):
Yeah, I mean, I imagine some people will resort
to doing extreme things, forsure, but I don't think we
should make our policy, you know, around the fact of what people
are going to do on their own orwhat they might have access to.
I think we need to haveevidence-based policy first and
foremost, and hopefully we canget those people uh other care
that they might need so thatthey wouldn't maybe pursue these

(01:26:33):
other, these other avenues, andI think we need to have a
grandfather clause as well Idon't think it's like yeah, to
be honest, well, I mean not todisagree with you, brie, but
like no, I mean it's kind oflike saying you know like, oh
well, rapists are, are gonnarape anyway, so like why make it
illegal?

Speaker 4 (01:26:49):
it's because it's like you know, there are always
going to be people who are goingto go against the law or go to
extreme measures to to docertain things.
But I get like it's differentwhen we're talking in the aspect
of health care.
But it's like I I just thinkthis conversation kind of sucks
because know more kids are goingto do those extreme things,
because we've just we've madethe whole trans topic so public
and it's being discussed inschools and it's all over the

(01:27:10):
media now and I just feel liketrans visibility movement has
almost harmed us for it, becausenow it's it's just now.
More kids like I said like amillion times it used to be a
kid would like say they feellike a girl if they were a
little boy and now they're justgoing up to their parents or
teacher and saying, oh, I'mtrans, because they know what
that is now and it's like taughtto them.

Speaker 5 (01:27:29):
So I don't know, I feel like it's almost just kind
of like fucked us over in a wayand kelly even on that like
because these kids are hearingthis rhetoric like you were
going to kill yourself unlessyou transition right, and I told
my parents that I thought Iwould kill myself when, truly, I
don't know if I would havekilled myself if I didn't go on
HRT.

Speaker 4 (01:27:46):
But a huge reason my conservative parents let me go
on HRT is because I told themthat and, truly, if they still
told me, no, I don't think Iwould have been so.
So I don't think I have theability to kill myself.
I just want to know yeah, Imean so much, yeah, is that
going to like make other kidsjust say these things so they
can get what they want?
You know what I mean?

(01:28:07):
Like not like saying you, butI'm just saying like the trans
community as a whole, likepushing that.
It's almost like telling kidsto say these things in order to
get what they want, in a way, ortelling these kids that like,
if their parents say no, thenyou do need to go on 4chan and
get whatever HRT you can.

Speaker 2 (01:28:25):
I just want to clarify I do not support going
on 4chan, just to be clear.

Speaker 5 (01:28:28):
I'm just saying it's going to happen, so because the
conversation has become soelevated and so extreme.
We have, like you know, ifwe're worried about kids going
on 4chan I think that alsoprobably contributes to that
this feeling that like, oh myGod, you know, the science is
settled If I don't start HRT I'm, you know, I'm dead, I'm gone.

(01:28:52):
And like earlier you weretalking about kind of
understanding transitionretroactively and like, like
Kelly, I don't necessarily knowif it would have been like the
worst thing if I nevertransitioned.
Like you know, I'm sort of Irecognize that I'm an outlier in
this.
I always, you know, put that onthe table, but I think I

(01:29:14):
probably would have been okay,not transitioning, um, and you
know, just living as kind oflike AGP man, and so I mean,
it's like hard to acknowledgeand I think that, like, if I had
not transitioned, I would havealways had this burning feeling
of like oh, if I just transition, everything will be like great

(01:29:34):
in my life.
But I think if I had like nottransitioned in a hypothetical
world where I also know where Iend up, having transitioned, um,
and I would have been able tolike say to that curiosity and
just say like okay, um, and Iwould have been able to like
state that curiosity and justsay like, okay, that's how I
would feel psychologically, thenI think I could probably not
transition and be okay.
Now, unfortunately, we don'thave the ability to like

(01:29:57):
transfer information betweentimelines, um, but I do feel
like so much of my transition,like you know candidly calling
you don't know this, but Itransitioned came out when I was
like 14.
So I transitioned very earlyand a lot of the rhetoric that I
was hearing from doctors was,like you know, you just need to
do this and like it'll fixpretty much everything in your

(01:30:19):
life.
Um, that turned out not to bethe case.
Now would I say transition hadlike bad effects for me.
No, not necessarily.
Like I would say it's overall,maybe like a slight positive,
but it also costs a lot.

Speaker 6 (01:30:31):
So I don't think, even in my case, I don't think
it's like a clear-cut, um, youknow, positive or negative
example yeah, I'll raise onething too is that has to do with
sort of the social contagion ofsuicide, and if you look, I
think it's GLAAD and even theACLU and other sort of human,
the human rights campaign.
They used to issue thesedocuments of how to talk about

(01:30:53):
suicide exogenous event, like alegislation or something like
that, because suicide is anenormously complex thing and if
people are saying that like, oh,these people committed suicide
because of this one thing overhere, because of the legislation
, this sort of given the socialcontagion of suicide makes

(01:31:15):
people more likely to commitsuicide when certain laws are
passed.
And we have this, this completeflip of the narrative now,
where you have hrc, you haveglad who are talking
specifically about like you knowwhat to do if you're feeling
suicidal because of this new,you know law being passed, and
this is just completely counterto what they're doing.
And so, yeah, there's there's asuggestion that kids who you

(01:31:38):
know if they're going to theblack market to get you know diy
, hrt and stuff because they'reso concerned that they're gonna
commit suicide, like some ofthat is because of I think it
was the narrative around suicideand how it's become seen as
almost like a reasonable thingto do, or just like an
inevitable outcome of notreceiving these things.

Speaker 2 (01:31:56):
So so I fully agree with you and I want to see the
conversation like I really hopeI'm not coming across here as
the person that's like all gasand no brakes, with gender
transition is not my intentionand I fully agree with you.
These stories of saying yourkids automatically going to kill
themselves utterly unhelpful.
We need to stop that.

(01:32:17):
Today I guess it's just likewhen I'm thinking about the
public policy that we have todevelop.
It's really hard if you'resaying like don't talk about the
suicidal ideation.
Like a kid getting a gun orlike Lila Alcorn throwing
themselves in front of an18-wheeler.
That's not the only way thatthese like self-destructive

(01:32:39):
tendencies exhibit themselves.
It's with sexually riskybehavior.
I mean, how many trans womenhave AIDS, colin?
You've published these storiesover at Reality's Last Stand.
Risky sexual behavior, eatingdisorders, drug addiction,
depression.
Like a kid killing themselvesis not the only way that this is
expressed and I think it's not.

(01:33:02):
If I'm saying like the risk ofDIY stuff, that's not to like,
come there and scare monger,it's because I'm trying to ask
everyone here to consider ifwe're going after the right
target.
What all of us I'm hearing herewant today is we want A.
All of us here.
We want questions to be able tobe raised.

(01:33:23):
We want children to get themessage that if they're
transitioned like they may not,it's not as catastrophic as the
worst scenario is telling you,and we want them to be able to
explore options.
I think all of us want theactivists out of trans health
care today and I think all of uswant to raise those standards

(01:33:44):
out of trans healthcare today,and I think all of us want to
raise those standards.
I think the difference that I'mhearing is what the correct
vehicle is to explore thosechanges that all of us agree on,
and I just disagree that atotal ban is the way to go.
I think, looking at the medicalpractitioners and the ultra low
, politicized standards, thatjust pragmatically makes sense

(01:34:06):
to me, because the diy stuff isso easy to access today and I
hand to god, I can think of noway to regulate this.
I I can't like cryptocurrency.
You're not going to makecryptocurrency go away.
You can't intercept this stuffat the border.
I mean, how are you going tostop this from happening?
Like, pragmatically, I can'tthink of a way well it's a back.

Speaker 6 (01:34:30):
I'm for a total ban on, you know, on minors, but I
don't think that meansnecessarily mean I'm for like a
total ban on, you know thesetypes of procedures completely
for for adults, and I think 18is.
I mean, I remember when I was18, that's still pretty damn
young.
I don't think saying that I'mfor a total ban, you know at a

(01:34:52):
certain age cohort, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:34:55):
What would that be?
Would that be 18 or 25?

Speaker 6 (01:34:59):
It'd be 18.

Speaker 4 (01:35:00):
Okay, I'm curious do you know, have those suicide
numbers gone up?
Because I just wonder, if theyhave, like, how much of this has
, how much of it has to do with,you know, like kids just being
exposed to the, the idea oftransition being possible.
You know, because like not tolike reiterate my point, but I
just feel like we gained so muchmore when people weren't aware

(01:35:21):
that this was possible and itwas only something they did when
they knew they had to do it andit was the last resort.
So when you know we tell kidsat like six, seven years old
that like, oh, you cantransition, this is possible for
some people be accepting it, italmost like tells them, oh, I
need to do this.
And it almost like makes thosesuicidal ideations and thoughts
like come a lot more often thanthey are supposed to.

(01:35:44):
What?

Speaker 6 (01:35:46):
do you think?
Yeah, so from what I've seensuicide rates, you know they've
been going up across the board,just in general for younger
people.
But this is, you know,correlates with their general
increase in mental health issuesfor young people and it's
really difficult to disentangleIs it because they're
identifying as trans or are they?
Do they have mental healthissues before?

(01:36:07):
That sort of causes them toidentify as trans later it's
kind of hard to know where thecausal factors lie.
I think there has been anincrease in sort of suicidal
ideation, but the actual ratesof suicide I don't think have
gone up.
Specifically, you know, whenyou control for things like
comorbidities and mental healthissues and things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:36:31):
But social anxiety we know that's skyrocketing.
I'm pretty sure, like drugaddiction rates, they are going
up, you know I mean across theboard.
So I think it would probably bereasonable to expect a lot of
that is happening for transpeople as well.

Speaker 6 (01:36:48):
Yeah, it depends if it's because they're trans or is
it because of the co-occurringmental health issues.
Is it just a result of themental health things or is it in
need for their transition?

Speaker 2 (01:36:58):
Yeah, and that's why I want to get these healthcare
providers there.
I mean something you've talkedabout a lot on Reality's Last
Stand which I had never thoughtabout is this tie between autism
and transition.
And I used to just think aboutthis like, oh, that's just a
trans girl with autism.
And I today think likesomething fundamental like these
girls are.
You know, I don't mean this ina bad way, they're just

(01:37:20):
different than I am, like theirmotivations are different, their
culture is different, the way.
They're just different than Iam.
Their motivations are different, their culture is different,
the way they behave is different.
I think we would be so served byunpacking those comorbidities
and giving everyone more spaceto explore that stuff.
I think one of the mostdangerous aspects of the

(01:37:44):
activists kind of getting thereins to health care is there's
not a willingness.
There's a system thattransition and it's going to fix
all your problems rather thangoing okay, you've got social
anxiety disorder to the pointwhere you can't go outside May,
we need to work on this at thesame time, or a drug addiction
at the same time, like.

(01:38:05):
I just think, like thecomorbidities, you can't
transition if it's not from aplace of stability.
Right, it's going to be thehardest thing you've ever done,
and I think that we're justserving people into the machine,
as is evidenced by the way thecommunity behaves, which is just
deranged a lot of the time yeah, have you heard of minority?

Speaker 6 (01:38:26):
minority stress hypothesis, brianna?

Speaker 2 (01:38:28):
uh, I have.

Speaker 6 (01:38:29):
Yes, but tell, tell our viewers what this is so it's
commonly used rather than sortof people who have a lot of
social anxiety and whatever, um,you know, being more likely to
be drawn to the sort ofideologies or something of the,
the modern trans movement.
It tends to view it to the sortof ideologies or something of
the the the modern transmovement.
It tends to view it just theopposite of views all of the
distress, everything through thelens of, oh, it's because

(01:38:52):
society is treating them poorlybecause they're trans and then,
oh, if they only transition,then, like, all of these things
would be alleviated.
I mean, even Jack Turpin evensaid that the high autism rates
among uh people who are trans,uh, is part of the whole
minority stress type of thing.
It's not really autism, it's, Imean it's, it's, it's really an

(01:39:13):
all, it's, it's well, it's kindof this, this idea that is
completely unfalsifiable becauseit's, you know, you can't test
it.
It explains everything.
Therefore, it explains nothing.
Um, and any tests of thehypothesis have just not shown
anything to be true.
Or if they have, it's throughsort of a wonky interpretation
of the data.
It's something Lior has writtenabout on my sub-stack before.

Speaker 1 (01:39:35):
Wow, colin, I have a question for you that is really
leaning into your biologybackground, just because I
really I like how you approachit with that.
So I also am very similar toTaff in that I see the typology
framework as useful or helpfulfor me, and when I made
decisions about my transition, Iidentify with the auto-sexual

(01:39:59):
type.
That's something that I haveexperience with and I think was
directly kind of, you know,feeding into my gender dysphoria
and what were some of themotivators for my transition.
And I was not a childtransitioner, I transitioned at
25.
I just sort of won the geneticlottery in a way and was able to
make this sort of work, and Ido appreciate the fact that I

(01:40:22):
had time to help come to myconclusions and my decision
making is.
I feel like it's given me more,a lot more confidence in just
kind of how to view transitionas a solution for me to move
forward and live a better lifeand rather than like changing my
sex or anything like that.
And so I guess what I, what Iwant to go with is, when it

(01:40:42):
comes to sexual orientation andsexuality, I think like what
I've gained, or what I've seen,is that most consensus seems to
be.
It's a process that happens inutero, but I want to hear from
you about how that process, sortof how you understand it to
work and, to that point, isthere any sort of evolutionary

(01:41:03):
advantage to experienceattraction to yourself or, in my
case, attraction to yourself asthe opposite sex, and like what
, what, why, what could thathappen from, like an
evolutionary standpoint?

Speaker 6 (01:41:16):
Oh, that's interesting.
So from what I know, theliterature on the development of
sexuality is something that isdone in utero.
There's also somewhat of agenetic component, but it's kind
of the wiring of your brainbecause there's surges of
testosterone at different levelsin utero that males will

(01:41:37):
experience, that females won't.
And we know that if you surveya bunch of people who are
lesbians, you do brain scans onthem.
Their brains are slightly moreandrogenized, which means have
responded to higher levels oftestosterone.
They have sort of these fingerdigit ratios that exemplify sort

(01:41:58):
of higher levels oftestosterone.
Women who have polycystic ovarysyndrome and their bodies are
producing more levels oftestosterone.
They tend to be not all of them, but they tend to be more
same-sex attracted as well.
So you know, hormone exposuredoes have a developmental role
in who people are attracted to.
It's kind of different, I think.
Androgenization, sorry,predicts, you know, being

(01:42:25):
attracted to women, to thefemale body type, but it's not
exactly the same with males.
It's not, you know they're.
You know, being sort offeminized or non-androgenized
makes you more likely to be gay,Although I think it is a little
bit, but it's not quite asclear cut as just like direct
exposures to androgens makespeople more likely to be

(01:42:47):
attracted to females indevelopment.
So, yeah, so it's.
It appears to be an innate,innate feature, just your
sexuality, that you willeventually be.
It's interesting to think aboutwhether something like AGP is
its own unique sexuality.
That's sort of exists on thespectrum of, you know, being

(01:43:07):
straight or being gay.
It might be something elsegoing on there.
I mean, I've known that therehave been some brain scan
studies where there's an area inthe brain I'm terrible with
like names of the brain, but myfriend Sam Stagg has reviewed a
lot of these studies and it's anarea of the brain that has to
do with like self-perception andthings like that, and that

(01:43:27):
tends to be larger inindividuals who are like the AGP
, the heterosexual, transsexualcohort.
Oh, really, that's sointeresting.
Yeah, it's the same area in thebrain.
It's the same area in the brainthat has to do with, like
people who are anorexic.
It's sort of you know, theythey see themselves as one way,
but they they feel some otherway and it's it's really

(01:43:49):
interesting.
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of whatit's.
It's what you might expect.
You know, it's kind of like aHoly crap.
Like this makes sense in a, ina developmental sense.
Um, as far as like anevolutionary explanation for AGP
, you know, I'm not sure if Icould come up with one.
It's so rare that it's in therealm of.

(01:44:11):
You know.
Variation is out there.
There are some.
Not every trait can be, youknow, coughed up to an
adaptationist view.
Some traits are just kind ofthey exist in the population
because they're correlated withother traits.
I'm not convinced that it iseven an adaptive trait or how

(01:44:31):
exactly that could be adaptive.
I mean, I'd have to think aboutit to come up with a scenario,
but it would be.
Uh, I have to work on it and tocome up with a reliable thing
that made sense I don't havelike crazy theories on that for
sure, but we can chat aboutthose if you want yeah, well,
just on that.

Speaker 5 (01:44:49):
I mean, for most of human history, having agp does
not necessarily entail like amedical transition or
sterilization, because you don'thave access to these hormones.
So it's not necessarilysomething that we'd expect to be
like strongly selected against,especially if agps are also
historically having sex withwomen.
So, yeah, it seems likeplausible to me that it can

(01:45:11):
exist in that evolutionarycontext.

Speaker 1 (01:45:13):
So, yeah, so is it one further extension to that is
I've seen some people say thatyour sexuality kind of like, I
guess, in utero is like thebasis of it, but then it is kind
of continuously hardwiring upuntil puberty.
What are your thoughts on that?
Does it continue through likeearly childhood?
Is there any possibility forenvironmental mechanisms to, you

(01:45:37):
know, shape that further, or isit really more in utero?

Speaker 6 (01:45:41):
I mean there's always going to be some environmental
play that goes on.
You know, before you knowpuberty and things like that,
before people are beginning tobe sexually active, before
they're attracted to anyone youknow, consciously or anything,
it tends to be exhibited in justsex non-conforming behavior,
like you'll get sort of moremasculine behaving girls and

(01:46:03):
more feminine behaving boys.
That's not to say that every,every masculine girl or feminine
boy is going to grow up to begay, but they by and large do,
you know a large proportion ofthem will, and so but it isn't
until you know, they get toreach puberty and they start,
you know they're going to startactivating that.

(01:46:24):
That sex nonconformity extendsitself to the realm of sexuality
, where they're also sexnonconforming in their sexual
preferences.
Um, so that's that's kind ofhow it tends to manifest, uh,
through development.
It's just sex nonconformity andthen that just sort of extends
to their sexual preferenceslater on.

Speaker 1 (01:46:40):
Right, so you can see it in the behavior.
Yes, yeah, that's fascinating,thank you.
So I have a question.

Speaker 2 (01:46:48):
How politically like just getting like one of my
things is I try to be verypragmatic.
Like, where do we go?
I'm very much a ABC projectmanager.
How do we get down the list?
And I think very often, likewith this stuff, we tend to talk
about our ideals and we don'treally talk about how we get
there.
So, like, when it comes totaming the extremism of the

(01:47:11):
trans movement, I've got a planright.
It's doll cast as part of this.
Like bring more moderateviewpoints out there.
Dedicate more of my you knowmedia public presence to getting
moderate perspectives out there.
And work working on WashingtonPost piece right now on this
like to present a different sideso that trans women don't only

(01:47:33):
have to go into this fringe leftcommunity.
Right, that's my plan to turndown the conversation.
I'm looking for a place to gowith with people to do that,
with me Over on your side.
Like I want to be clear I don'tthink, like you're against us.
I do think your audience,generally speaking, has you know
more people that are criticalof trans people than say I do.

(01:47:55):
So, like what concretely, orwhat role do you think you have
to kind of get the conversationto be more productive, or do you
think you don't have a role?

Speaker 6 (01:48:06):
No, I have a role.
I mean, that's what I've beentrying to do by highlighting.
I've written articles in theWall Street Journal about the
dangerous denial of sex and sortof issues with gender ideology
more broadly.
I've been trying to just raiseawareness of the problems that I
see out there, because thefirst step was to sort of this
consciousness raising effort.

(01:48:26):
I think that has largely beensuccessful and consciousness has
been raised quite a bit.
The next step had been sort ofokay, well, now that people know
the issues that are going on,well, what do we do?
What are the issues?
How is this happening?
Oh, we'll look at WPATH.
Oh, oh, look at all theseorganizations that have been
essentially captured, uh, bythis, this certain ideology that

(01:48:47):
is, you know, producing all thestuff, refusing to self.
You know, analyze their own,their own biases and try to get
people who are in theseorganizations, who we know
through a lot of emails thatthey they feel like they're
being muzzled behind the scenes.
So try to get uh people to beable to speak, speak up and
actually, you know, hold theactivist feet to the fire about
evidence based medicine in theseareas, so that they can sure,

(01:49:09):
we can actually look at evidencerather than just ideology Do
you not?

Speaker 2 (01:49:13):
Would you not agree that there's a political project
out there to basically thatgoes the other way?
Like you can see that gendercriticals have their own
extremist policy project right?
So I guess my question is whatrole do you think you have?
What concrete actionable stepsdo you?
How do we get to?

(01:49:34):
I understand like I agree withyour entire mission there for
the trans side Over on thegender critical side what are
the steps?
You think people like you thatdo believe in dignity for trans
people, what would your approachbe to kind of getting them to
go come on, like let's not talkabout a total ban here, there's
no need to dehumanize people,like we all need, like respect

(01:49:59):
here.
What role do you think you haveto play in calming that down?

Speaker 6 (01:50:04):
Yeah, I mean I try to do that a lot.
I mean I get attacked from theGC ultras that's what they're
calling themselves a lot now,and I've had to go on massive
blocking sprees because I didlike a podcast with Julia Malott
and then they just postpictures.
It's just like oh, colin andhis pet trunes or whatever they
just go.

(01:50:24):
I'm friends with sarah higdonand then I just get things.
It's like oh, like colin is, isthis catching them all like
pokemon?
It's just ridiculous.
And they just they think that,yeah, no, they go hard against
me and I just try to say, no,these are, these are people who
are my friends and I treat themas individuals, because that's
how I treat all my friends.

(01:50:55):
I just try to, I guess, live asthe example of someone who shows
people dignity based on beingan individual, and I hope others
do the same.
And if I see people attacking atrans woman just because
they're trans or something outin public, I push back against
that.
Because they're trans orsomething out in public, I push
back against that.
I mean I think I try to shamepeople on that side too, because
I don't think we should be, youknow, shaming anyone for just
expressing themselves in thepublic and, you know, presenting

(01:51:17):
themselves as the opposite sexor whatever.
I mean I just yeah.
I just I just treat people asindividuals and I'm.
I have a lot of trans friends.
I love them all and I don'tyeah yeah, I consider you a
friend.

Speaker 2 (01:51:28):
I do.
I know it's gonna piss peopleoff, but I like you a lot.
No, I carry.

Speaker 6 (01:51:32):
So it's less of a public policy solution and more
yeah, I don't know if it can bedone with policy, it's.
I mean, people can be assholes.

Speaker 2 (01:51:39):
I don't know how you legislate against assholes, it's
just well, I mean, but it's the, the, the w path, like.
That's why it comes back to melike what are the standards that
we are applying to this?
That's like a very concretepublic policy play that I want
to do there.
So, um, I don't know, I thinkthere's a I.
I just I wish there was a wayto, because I find it so

(01:52:03):
consistently frustrating.
Because there are reasonableTERFs and gender criticals.
I talk to them every day andthey're like look, they're
exactly like you.
They're like I don't want transwomen in sports.
I have no issue with someonelike getting married and having
a life and using the bathroom,right.
That's just a different thing.
I'm talking about these.

(01:52:23):
You know I don't want to see apenis in a locker room and I
really wish there was a space toelevate those voices at the
public policy level, because Ithink if people like me are
sitting down with people likeyou and them, I think that's
where this insanity ends, in myview.

Speaker 6 (01:52:43):
I agree.
That's why I like to come onshows like this and I'll still
continue talking to trans peopleon their shows and try to just
be the example, I guess best Ican.

Speaker 5 (01:52:53):
Right, so hard to do, but I think that's like so
necessary that some people areable to do that just to turn
down the temperature andactually get to like a more
reasonable conversation, causelike, at the end of the day,
like maybe I, you know, I dothink that there should be some
pathway for adolescenttransition, you know, if it's
like 16 with rigorous standards.

(01:53:16):
But I've like only come to thatconclusion through analyzing and
like raising flags about theevidence, and a lot of trans
people are not willing to likehave that conversation with me
whatsoever because I'm like alot of this evidence is kind of
shaky, like maybe we need toreevaluate and do all these
things, and they just like writeme off as like a crazy person.

(01:53:39):
And then I've also tried totalk to like gender critical and
turfy people and I've had themjust like totally be like you
know it's cliche, but like justvery like hateful, just like
totally writing me off becauseof my identity and that's
frustrating because I feel likejust no one is being benefited
from this and I really it likebreaks my heart to hear these

(01:54:02):
like detransition stories and tosee how people are failed by
doctors and I just don't wantthat to happen and, at the same
time, I want for, like doctors,to be able to make actual
decisions based on evidence, andit feels like there's so little
opportunity to just talk toreasonable people who agree with
that.

Speaker 2 (01:54:21):
Yeah, yeah, Do you think WPath needs to?
Just do you think we need tohave people in the middle
building a new WPath?
Because that's almost where Iam.
I mean, your own organizationhas written plenty about the
WPath files when they came outExtremely disturbing stuff.
And you know, I remember when Itransitioned on the Benjamins

(01:54:43):
and I remember when WPathstarted and I was like, oh, this
is a really good thing, this isgoing to standardize this and
pursue more science, and I thinkit's unfortunately true that
it's a fringe left progressiveorganization that is more about
advocacy for a leftist point ofview than it is pursuing science
.
I mean, do you think that justneeds to be rebooted?

(01:55:05):
Do you think, like it needs tobe ignored?
Like what is the process to getbetter medical safeguarding in
the loop again?
It's a good question.

Speaker 6 (01:55:15):
Yeah, I think WPATH is a lost cause.
Honestly, I don't see a pathwayto reform, just given how, I
mean from the bottom to the top,I mean there might be some
individuals in the fringes thatdisagree, but they have no power
and as soon as anyone saysanything from within, uh, they
just get, they just get shoutedout and exiled from the

(01:55:37):
organization.
Um, it's, I mean it's it's asclose to total ideological
capture, I think, as you canpossibly get within these things
.
I mean, they took out, theytook out like age limits and
they put in a chapter on unix intheir most recent uh, standards
of care it's a fetish, just soeveryone knows it is yes, I mean

(01:55:57):
if and if they, if they coulddo that and like not bat an eye
and just be like, why wouldn'twe have a chapter on unix?
um, I mean, it just shows thedegree how far gone they are.
So I mean I would hope thatthis type of medicine just takes
place under the umbrella of themedical organizations.
We already have APA, endocrineSociety, things like that.

(01:56:18):
I don't know if we need aspecific organization, because
it just turns into like anactivist advocacy organization
that departs from evidencebecause you know it's whatever
the evidence happens to say Well, they're representing people
who want access, not necessarilyyou know what's the best
evidence-based medical carethat's out there.

Speaker 2 (01:56:39):
I hope this isn't an overshare, but I have such a
love-hate relationship withMarcy Bowers, who did my
vaginoplasty, because, on onehand, like she did something
that made my life so much better, like so incredibly much better
, made it possible for me to getmarried and date straight men
and have a really good life, andso I saw the way that she

(01:57:03):
fought at the hospital to gether trans patients care and I'm
so personally thankful for her.
But then, on the other, I'veseen the way she's overseen the
fall of this institution thathad so much potential to make my
life better and everyone else'slife better, and she's just a
failed leader and I'm so tornabout this.

(01:57:26):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 6 (01:57:28):
Yeah, no, I totally understand.

Speaker 5 (01:57:29):
That's how I feel too , where, like, I just see people
who you know claim to be likesupporting us, and I think
whenever these people, whetherthey be in the democratic party
or the medical establishment,whenever they stand by like bad
science or refuse to engage withreality, that is such like a

(01:57:51):
poison pill, and eventually thatis going to come and wreck
havoc, because you cannot winagainst reality, and the larger
the gap between ideology andreality, the harder that snap
will be when eventually thingscome crashing together, and so I
just don't think there's anyway through this that doesn't

(01:58:12):
involve a totally honestdiscussion and, yeah, it's
frustrating for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:58:19):
Yeah, that's why we're here.
That's why we're here with you,Colin, Reality's Last Stand, I
mean you've been on that projectfor a while and it's like it's
true, it's interesting all thegroups that caught up in it and,
honestly to me, that GenSpec isthe result, direct result
almost of WPath failing.
I mean, that's something we'reall seeing here and there's been

(01:58:40):
controversy after controversyand I's like we got to pay

(01:59:04):
attention to them and we got tounderstand the limits of gender,
really gender care at all, andjust understand that we got to
be balanced and nuanced in howwe approach this and be data
driven.
And that's something I always,I've always personally
appreciated with your platform,because I do see you really
diving in to the data as opposedto the ideology.

Speaker 2 (01:59:27):
Yeah, speaking of science, I wanted to give you an
option.
My husband has a PhD inbacterial genetics and spent, I
believe, over 25 years workingin drug development development,
and we thought it would be funto make sure we're ending the
show with some good vibes to um,come in and give you a little

(01:59:48):
bit of a game show.
So are you up for that at all?

Speaker 6 (01:59:51):
oh god, am I gonna be quizzed on biology, right?
Now I've been out of the fieldfor a little while, but yes,
let's, let's do it.
Hopefully they're moreevolution oriented oh, Hello
Frank.
Oh God.

Speaker 3 (02:00:04):
Hi, there Hi.

Speaker 6 (02:00:06):
It's being sprung on here, dr Wright.

Speaker 3 (02:00:09):
Hi, my name is Dr Frank Wu, I'm Brianna and I
would like to say hello to you.
Scientists to scientists.
So, as Brianna mentioned, Ihave a PhD in molecular biology,
you have a PhD in socialinsects and arthropods, which I

(02:00:30):
find fascinating, and sometimewe should just sit down and just
talk about that stuff, becausethat's awesome.

Speaker 6 (02:00:36):
I love talking about that stuff.
I never get to anymore.

Speaker 3 (02:00:39):
I'm writing a science fiction, a military science
fiction novel about humansversus a society of killer space
centipedes.
So you know social archipelagos, anyway, we're off topic Anyway
.
So your PhD is from UC SantaBarbara, go Gauchos.

(02:01:00):
Mine is from the University ofWisconsin.
Go Badgers, we have a bye weekthis week and if you are game to
be in a little game, I wouldlike to invite you to a brand
new segment of Go Cow Science.
Blinded by science, I'm down.

(02:01:22):
Do you see what I have to deal?

Speaker 2 (02:01:24):
with all the time.
This is what you deal with offcamera.
I regret transition entirely.
I take it up.
I have no idea what happened inthe show, but before I showed
up.

Speaker 3 (02:01:34):
I assume this is like a I'm just continuing the happy
, joyful energy.

Speaker 5 (02:01:40):
Yeah, no.

Speaker 3 (02:01:42):
Actually, skylar, if you would like to be volunteered
to be scorekeeper, it'll bereally easy.
I will ask progressively harderquestions and, as uh dr right
answers them, he will getprogressively more and more
points and thereby glory andhonor all right.
Question number one proteinsinclude enzymes.
Eight percent of muscles% ofmuscle mass is protein.

(02:02:07):
Proteins are made of aminoacids.
Question number one for DrWright what is the amino acid
represented by the single letter, abbreviation R?
And if you need a hint I cangive it to you R Amino acid R.

Speaker 5 (02:02:25):
The pirate acid.

Speaker 6 (02:02:31):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:02:32):
It is.
I'm asking about R.

Speaker 2 (02:02:36):
Arginine, arginine.

Speaker 3 (02:02:37):
Yes, oh, my God.

Speaker 6 (02:02:40):
There we go.

Speaker 3 (02:02:43):
Are you sure that's right?
20 points.
20 points for question numberone, 20 out of 20.
Excellent, good job.
Okay, question number two whatis the central dogma of
molecular biology?

Speaker 6 (02:02:59):
Well, that's the link between let's see that you got
it.
Yeah, yeah, no, I know thatit's that all the selection is
based on, like random mutationcreating different types of
proteins, and that leads thatcan basically explain, like all
the evolutionary.

(02:03:20):
It's the link between thegenetics creating proteins, uh,
that get selected for this,basically, is that for the
central doctor.

Speaker 3 (02:03:33):
If I had asked the question, what is genetic
evolution?
I would have given you 20points, but I actually have the
central doctor, which is alittle different.

Speaker 6 (02:03:46):
I don't know if I can formally put it Okay.

Speaker 3 (02:03:47):
So let me ask you this what?

Speaker 6 (02:03:51):
is the relationship between DNA, rna and protein.
Go so DNA?
Well, it creates the RNA, so itbinds with it, and then the RNA
then goes out and makes theproteins.

Speaker 3 (02:04:03):
There you go Through the ribosome.
That's exactly it DNA, dnamakes DNA.

Speaker 6 (02:04:08):
Okay, so that's the central dogma is DNA to RNA to
protein.
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:04:13):
Okay, gotcha.

Speaker 6 (02:04:14):
I've been out of it for a little while.

Speaker 3 (02:04:16):
No, I changed it.

Speaker 2 (02:04:18):
I used to teach this to my students we're rooting for
you.
Dahlkcast wants you to pullthis out.
Come on, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 (02:04:28):
He's the molecular biologist here, so he spends his
time.
I spend my time poking ants andbees and wands.

Speaker 3 (02:04:32):
Okay, well, okay, so let me give you like 12 points
out of like whatever for thattechnical question.
All right, okay, okay, I amfull of questions, but I'm also
like inquisitive myself, so Iwould so for 10 points.
Tell me something that I mightnot know about bees, and I'll

(02:04:57):
give you 10 points.
If I didn't know that you mightnot know?

Speaker 6 (02:05:00):
Yes, do you know that they do a certain dance on
their hive and the angle thatthey do their dance on a
vertical hive has to do with theflat angle in relation to the

(02:05:21):
sun is where their next hive isgoing to be or where their next
flower patch is going to be.
I actually did the waggle dance?
I, I did know that.
Tell me something else.
Let's see with bees, um, youknow how?

(02:05:41):
About wasps?
Because their personality isrelated to the personality of
their entire hive.
Like you can predict the way ahive behaves at a group level
based on the personality of thefounding queen who founds it
early on in the year like whatkind of I?

Speaker 3 (02:06:01):
because I know like one of one of your papers is on
like, uh, the personality of, oflike groups, uh, of of
organisms, as opposed to likeindividual, which I which I
thought was really yeah, yeah,uh so what?
What do you?
What do you mean by thepersonality of wasp?
Yeah, tell us about this.

Speaker 6 (02:06:19):
This is actually what part of my well, my PhD
specifically, was on spiders,but I was doing like two PhDs
side by side and whichever onewas best was going to be my
dissertation, so mine was on.
I did a lot of research onpaper wasps.
The solitary paper wasp thatstarts out with a single queen,
it's a Pellicetes metricus.

(02:06:40):
It's a paper wasp.
Palistes metricus it's a paperwasp, and basically you can
predict the behavior of theentire colony that comes out
months later that she founds, byjust knowing the behavior of
the founding queen.
And not only that, you can findout how the colony is likely to
survive, uh, in nature, basedon the colony's personality.
So queens that are really boldand stay on their nests for long

(02:07:02):
and defend their nests giverise to colonies that actually
are less likely to attackintruders.
The workers are less likely tofly off.
But queens that are more likelyto fly away when you're
prodding them and antagonizingthem are more likely to give
rise to nests that have workersthat will fly and swarm quickly
at you when you pester them,quickly at you, when you, when

(02:07:26):
you, when you, when you pesterthem.
Uh, and then colony survival isrelated to to both queen how
bold they are and also how large, the queens, are no analogies
there to anything we'vediscussed today that was one of
my big discoveriesI guess as a when I was a real
working scientist.
So that is something that I, I.

Speaker 3 (02:07:41):
So is there a way, theoretically, that someone
should take that knowledge tomake some kind of chemical or
something to control wasppopulations in like my house,
sing me and go like just like dotheir wasp thing without like

(02:08:04):
over there, without likebothering me?

Speaker 6 (02:08:07):
it'd be.
You know, I was always that was.
The worst part about writinggrants is because there wasn't a
whole lot of like practicalapplication for my research.
It was just I thought it wasreally really cool and I would
always I made a ball here topractice.

Speaker 3 (02:08:19):
I would always, I would always try to make.

Speaker 6 (02:08:21):
Yeah, I would always try to make some link to like
colony collapse in bees, and ifpersonalities occur in these
wasps and maybe these samethings occur in bees, and then
somehow with that knowledge wecan protect the bees.
Or you know, I would always saythat in my grants, but at the
end of the day I just wanted toplay with wasps.

Speaker 5 (02:08:39):
Go ahead, oh go ahead , tell me, wait.
No, I have a question.
What's the chance that we canbreed wasp queens to make like
really friendly ones, thatcreate hives of like wasps that
could be our pets?

Speaker 2 (02:08:52):
oh my god you could probably select for the docile
wasps.

Speaker 6 (02:08:56):
I think that I mean that there is a genetic
component because their, theirworkers have, you know, inherit
their personalities.
So I mean I guess there weresome experimentals we wanted to
follow up.
I never got a chance to becauseI left academia, but I wanted
to see, I want to do these queenswap, uh tests where, like
before the workers emerge, youput a different queen on the
colony because the workers willwork for whoever, whatever queen

(02:09:17):
is there, uh, and if theybehave, see if the workers
behave, as though you predictbased on their natal queen
versus the replacement queen.
So I never got to tease apartactually the genetic versus
environmental Interesting.
That could be someone else'sdissertation.

Speaker 5 (02:09:34):
If I had grad students, I'd have it, he's
giving out free ideas.

Speaker 3 (02:09:38):
And whether the wasps give like an initial signal
that sets everything in motion,or whether they give continuous
biochemical signals.
Yeah, yeah, whatever thatmaintain order as as defined,
yeah you can do.

Speaker 6 (02:09:52):
You can do queen removals to all kinds of yeah,
there's so many things.

Speaker 3 (02:09:55):
What happens?

Speaker 6 (02:09:55):
to it, I mean to the last.

Speaker 2 (02:09:57):
Okay, okay, frank, I love you.
I've been married to you.
I told you at five minutes not500 minutes.

Speaker 3 (02:10:11):
I'm going to give him an extra 15 points for that,
because that was justfascinating.
How many points is that Skylar?

Speaker 1 (02:10:23):
Oh gosh, Let me sum that up.

Speaker 6 (02:10:26):
Have we been keeping track?

Speaker 1 (02:10:27):
We have, I have 57 points, 57.

Speaker 3 (02:10:32):
A brand new record.
Hell yeah For our segment,science Blinded by Science,
which is all about the joy andwonder and diversity and
exceptions to rules and allsorts of complications that you
wouldn't expect in science andbiology.

Speaker 6 (02:10:56):
I hope you guys have other scientists on so I can see
how I measure up there.

Speaker 5 (02:11:01):
I've never seen 57 before.
That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (02:11:04):
It's a truly ast astounding uh amount of points.
So, anyway, so that was uh,that was fun.

Speaker 2 (02:11:12):
So, um, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,
everyone I like I just want tonote this I love that frank
positioned his camera so you seehis saber tooth tiger, his sky
striker and his lego version ofwhat is that the thing?

Speaker 3 (02:11:32):
gigahorse for lego version of the gigahorse which I
built myself from scratch.
Uh, so I'm very proud of thatand then then above on top we
can see Woolando, which is ourlittle Lego city.
Well, I wanted an interestingZoom background.

(02:11:54):
Anyway, thank you, thank youeverybody for having me.
Thank you, Dr Wright.

Speaker 6 (02:11:59):
Thank you so much.
I'm going to get dunked on bypeople for flubbing the central
dog.
Well, add in all the ones youmissed out.

Speaker 2 (02:12:03):
Yeah, exactly, thank you so much I'm gonna get dunked
on by people for flubbing thecentral dog.
Well, I added all the ones shemissed out.

Speaker 3 (02:12:07):
Yeah and again science is is full of wonder,
complications, exceptions andglory and uh, funness bye frank
thanks, frank very entertaininguh home, home life, you must

(02:12:27):
he's crazy.

Speaker 2 (02:12:28):
He's quite a character he's willing to marry
a trans woman.
So you can see the adventurousspirit that?
Yeah, isn't he?
Yeah, I love him.
I think he's good, he's fun,thank you colin yeah yeah, no,
this was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (02:12:42):
I'm, I'm glad to be here.
He's fun.
Thank you, colin.
Yeah, thank you, colin, forcoming on.

Speaker 6 (02:12:45):
Yeah, yeah.
No, this was a lot of fun.
I'm glad to be here.
I had messages from people thatwere like you're going to go on
there.
They're just it's going to be ayou know, I don't know, they're
going to try to get you onstuff and it's going to be
nothing but hostile.
But this was fantastic.
No, yeah, but I know some ofthe people on there.

Speaker 5 (02:13:02):
It's fine, we can talk and, yeah, I was definitely
trying to find like things wecould disagree on.
Yes, yeah, I was like oh god,I'm gonna end up agreeing with
everything.

Speaker 6 (02:13:12):
Yeah, well, I I know some of your, I know some of
your viewers on twitter.
They were saying I was likebasically the devil.
So I hope after watching this Iam a little, a little more
humanized to them, that I'm notyour enemy, at least I hope.

Speaker 2 (02:13:27):
I mean I can say this Look, you've always gendered me
correctly, you've been totallynice to me, and back channel I
mean, yeah, I don't think you'rethe enemy.
I think we share an assessmenton the dangers of what I think
you call woke ideology.
I 100% like it's not servinganyone and you know I'm not with

(02:13:47):
you on a total ban for minors.
But I think, other than that,there's a lot of shared energy.
I think, at the end of the day,all of us want the same thing
here and there's a better systemfor trans people, minors and
adults to transition under.
I think all of us agree thatthis highly politicized system
is serving no one.

Speaker 6 (02:14:08):
Yeah, and I think all of your voices are incredibly
important here, more so thanmine, because people don't
listen to me, because I'm just acis white, whatever person
who's getting bugs?
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (02:14:20):
I think we need you on our side.
Yeah, we need you too.
It's all team effort.

Speaker 6 (02:14:24):
Okay, team effort for sure.

Speaker 2 (02:14:26):
Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 1 (02:14:28):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
This was a lot of fun.
Thank you, should we move on totopic three?
I feel like we are.
We have a lot to go throughhere.
Okay, all right, so that wasgreat.
Now let's move on.

Speaker 2 (02:14:43):
I'm going to do it again.

Speaker 4 (02:14:44):
Look at that.

Speaker 5 (02:14:48):
All right.
Wow, what a great interview wedefinitely just had
chronological.

Speaker 2 (02:14:54):
We did not have to edit all these things in
different order.

Speaker 1 (02:15:00):
Wonderful, all right.
So now let's move on to ourfinal topic today and let's
address some recent reactions toour launch of Dollcast,
particularly one by IndiaWilloughby, who just had a
couple of negative things to sayabout the show, and I think
it's just an opportunity for usto respond, clear the air and
talk about why we're sopassionate about what we're

(02:15:22):
doing here and how we love thetrans community really with what
the show represents.
And, brie, as I understand thiswas a bit almost personal to
you.
Could you open up on that alittle bit?

Speaker 2 (02:15:35):
Well, can we show?
Do you want to read what shesaid?
So we can kind of give peoplecontext and then I'll kind of
address that.

Speaker 1 (02:15:43):
That is a great suggestion, yeah, so.
So India had this comment andshe put up out a post about it
and I'm going to read it rightnow.
She says I used to be like this.
I didn't know any LGBT peoplebefore publicly coming out, and
then I suddenly got swamped byLGBT orgs and charities because
of all the media attentiontelling me what to say, who to

(02:16:04):
support, what to do, et cetera,which I resented.
I didn't want to be a part of acommunity.
I had just broken free and Iwas an individual.
I transitioned because I was awoman and just wanted to fit in,
so I lashed back at LGBT.
I remember Piers Morgan tellingme that I was a role model for
doing so and for a time, you getdrunk on things like that.

(02:16:26):
But then, as I found my feetand opened my eyes, I realized
what these people liked wasn'tme.
They liked the fact I wasattacking and taking the mickey
out of my own.
This gang of four needs to growup.

Speaker 4 (02:16:41):
Wow, that's some bullshit if I've ever heard it.
That's my first time hearing itI didn't even see that.
The fact that, like she, ifanything, I was a pick me like
three months before we startedthis podcast, when I was like on
my trump right wing bullshit,like the last thing this is, is
like a pick me attitude.
This is up standing up.
This is us standing up for ourrights because of, like, all the

(02:17:01):
shit that's being taken from usclearly, which is why Trump
just won presidency and whywe're like freaking out about
having to like stack ourhormones so we don't like like
die or be forced to like revert.
Like I, if anything, that's themost pick me fucking post I've
ever heard in my life.
She's just doing being a pickme of the other side that's
right, it's the fringe.

Speaker 5 (02:17:21):
Yeah, I don't know I have like a hard time because I
don't want to be like too meanabout this, but I absolutely
feel like the only way you couldcome across, you could come
back with this position ondollcast, is to have not
actually listened to it at all,because I totally agree like my
entire goal going into this wasto avoid being a pick me and to

(02:17:47):
make, like you know, amends orto move towards the more trans,
positive position.
Like the first topic that I eversuggested on dollcast was what
do you love about the transcommunity?
And I have felt like sodisappointed in, you know, the
gender critical people and theTERFs, and I totally just want

(02:18:10):
to be able to like advocate fortrans people in a way that is
honest, but not, like you know,feeding into these like TERFy
talking points, and so it's likereally frustrating to me to see
this, because I feel like it islike so self-centered to like
see this, not watch it at all,not care about the actual

(02:18:31):
opinions discussed, but thenjust like make it about your
situation, like, yeah, I relateand I think you're like not
wrong about what you're saying,but like it's just not relevant
to like what I am saying, andit's so clearly, indicates like
a lack of interest in actuallyengaging with other people said

(02:19:04):
Taff, yeah, I, oh God, I don'twant to start drama with her,
but I have not said anythingabout India Willoughby publicly,
as she's gotten into row afterrow after row with JK Rowling.

Speaker 2 (02:19:13):
That I think has been poorly done.
I think she has portrayedherself in a way that makes
trans dignity harder, and I havechosen to not do that because I
generally don't go aftersisters unless I've got a really
big reason to.
So I find this to be sofrustrating because I'm not

(02:19:38):
someone that transitioned fiveminutes ago.
I transitioned a long timebefore India did and I've
thought carefully about this forover 20 years and I see us
moving in the wrong direction.
Everything we are doing onDollcast, it is because I think
all four of us love the transcommunity.
I think we love trans sisters.

(02:19:59):
I think we find a lot ofmeaning in sitting down once a
week.
I think there's a reason everyshow is three hours long,
because I think it means so muchto us to hang out with each
other.
And you know, what I want tocreate is not something because
I've got animosity towards transmen or non-binary people.

(02:20:19):
I just want a space where wecan have a voice about the
things that impact us and tokind of take the public policy
in a direction that serves us.
This show is not about hate.
It is about love for thecommunity, because I truly,
truly believe in my bones thatif you are a normal trans woman

(02:20:40):
that just wants to get surgeryand pass and get married to a
man and adopt some kids, I don'tthink you have a place to go
today and that's what I wantedto build.
So I respect you.
India, feel free to reach outto me and back channel Like I
don't want hostility with you,but you've fundamentally got her

(02:21:01):
motivations wrong I'm gonnaquote you on that.

Speaker 4 (02:21:05):
That normal trans woman, what you just said, she's
gonna be like oh, that wasdisgusting.
She's gonna ask you for a bigotjust for saying that.
Wait, it's like why you wouldbe nice to her, that's, but
that's okay.

Speaker 1 (02:21:16):
I mean, if she wants to do that, she can do that.
We can't convince everybody,nor should should we.
We should bring in the middleground, like that's what we're
here for.
Plus, the bigger audience isthe non-trans audience.
Anyways, I mean, they're thepeople that need to be reached,
not, we don't want the, we don'twant the arguments that are in
bad faith connecting with thosewith the middle ground people.

(02:21:38):
And it's like my viewpoint onthis is I have sympathy honestly
for India Willoughby because Ifeel like she has bought into
the wrong vision for what?
Yeah, for where the, wheretrans rights and LGBT rights
need to go, and it's like partof that is, from what I've seen,
is a denial of the limits of,you know, transition and

(02:21:59):
biological sex, and it's like we, we policy, has to meet in the
middle and and people outside ofthe community see that.
And that's where I think likethat's where we, you know we got
to bring it all in together.
And the whole thing about thepick me criticism, please,
everyone is a pick me forsomeone.
It's like there is no suchthing.
Pick me is the in my view, thefabricated attack on someone

(02:22:22):
actually standing for something,and it's because we care is why
we're here.
That's why, like someonecalling me a pick me honestly
doesn't phase me.
I want to listen to the meat ofwhy they think I'm a pick me.
That interests me, I'll take,I'll look into that.
But just the words of, of justthat superficial argument oh,
they're a pick me, it's nice tryat just trying to dismiss me.

(02:22:42):
The people that are open willlisten anyways, and that's what
I.
Yeah, go ahead.
No, go ahead, because I knowyou.

Speaker 5 (02:22:50):
You have a maybe we're trying to jump in over
each other more.
That's one of our main goals.
Yeah, no, I mean I guess Iwould say that I have been a
pick me Right and I feel like alot of my first steps, my first
forays into politicaldiscussions, were dominated by a

(02:23:12):
desire to sort of be likedtweet.
I resonate with that right,like I resonate so strongly with
her experience of having peoplewho maybe like would be a
threat to trans rights or atrans activism, coming to her
and being like, wow, you'redoing a really good job, like I,
like you.

(02:23:32):
That feels really good and thatcan be intoxicating.
And I, like India, also had theexperience of realizing at some
point like, ultimately, you know, I can get lots of adulation
and praise by these people, butin order to do that, I have to
deny some part of myself and Ihave to allow myself to be used

(02:23:56):
and tokenized.
I realized that and that'stokenized.
I realized that and that's whyI started dollcast.
I'm like, because I didn't wantto do that anymore.
And so it is because I like,relate so much to her and agree
with her about, like, notwanting these tokens, that the
tweet bothers me because it'slike, oh, like we could be like,

(02:24:18):
so on the same side on this,but I just feel misunderstood,
or maybe even like willfullymisunderstood.
And when you engage in thistweet, like you know,
immediately being like, oh, I'mshutting down these people, like
you know, I was just like them,but they they're just like
these pick me.
That is the same exact behavioras saying I'm not like other

(02:24:40):
trans people.
You should pick me Like I'm oneof the good ones.
It's the same kind of likeattention grabbing, you know,
throwing other people under thebus without really considering
their perspective that I'vetried so hard to get away from.
So I just find the whole thingso like, deeply ironic.

Speaker 4 (02:24:59):
Yeah, well, no, I was just saying, just saying you're
right, like it is ironic,because that it's the most, like
I said, it's the most pick mething I've ever heard.
It's just her, get trying toget the liberals, the extremists
, the non-binary crowd, all onher side.
It it's like if you were goingto pick me.
If you didn't want to getvalidation for the shit you're
saying, why would you havewritten that post instead of
dming us privately?

(02:25:19):
Yeah, explain that to me.

Speaker 5 (02:25:20):
Saying why would you have written?

Speaker 2 (02:25:22):
that post instead of dming us privately.

Speaker 4 (02:25:23):
Yeah explain that to me so she followed me for a long
time and see, no, I I want toknow.
Yeah, it's a genuine question.
I'm not even trying to be cunty.
Like seriously, like you putyou type that shit out to be
like, oh, I was gonna get somany, like so many, retweets.
Everyone's gonna tell me thatI'm so progressive.
Oh, follow me like I don't givea fuck.
It's such pick me behavior.

Speaker 5 (02:25:41):
Yeah because if she actually cared, she would have
like watched the actual show andseen what we actually had to
say and how.
In that very segment I'm likeyeah, I actually have no problem
with non-binary people and I'mcoming at it from a different
side than brianna, where I usedto be more conservative, and now
I feel like I really need todefend trans rights and like I
need to draw a line in the sand.

(02:26:02):
That in the sand that respectstrans people and also, you know,
doesn't give cover for the mostinsane opinions in the
community.
That's always been the needlethat I'm trying to thread, and I
and other people in the showmade that so clear in the
segment, and so it's like,clearly, you didn't actually

(02:26:23):
care about what was said, youjust care about like getting
this dunk on Twitter, which isthe worst kind of discourse.

Speaker 1 (02:26:30):
So I love the passion .
I'll just say that.

Speaker 2 (02:26:35):
I was just going to say you know, it doesn't take
bravery to be a progressive.
Pick me and to keep us going onthis course.
It's literally the most safething that you could do in this
moment and it's what a lot ofpeople are doing Right.
Just go for this maximalistopinion.
It takes no bravery at all.

(02:26:55):
I think what we're doing rightnow is a very, very brave thing,
because I get shit every singleday from trans people and I get
it from TERFs, and it's becauseI really love my sisters enough
that I'm trying to chart acourse for us where we're going
to be able to keep our rights.
And I'm sorry to be spicy toIndia, but you made a very

(02:27:19):
famous public comment saying youconsidered yourself more of a
woman than a cis woman.
This is the most brain dead,progressive, hostile, like
tailor made statement to makecis women hate us.
It is bizarre and this is thekind of reflexive and this is

(02:27:40):
the kind of reflexive, stupidpolitics that are driven by ego
and it just does nothing to helpus.
We need calmer heads to prevail.
We need people that are morethoughtful, like sit down and
understand.
I don't agree with you oneverything, but we are sisters

(02:28:03):
and let's stick together, likeat least for the next four years
.

Speaker 1 (02:28:07):
I genuinely don't know what situation would call
for them something I I really Ifeel like I already have learned
from taff in this whole thing,because I'm pretty new to the
online space.
I mean, honestly, doll cast islike one of the first things
I've ever tried online is theelement that defines pick me for
me in any real sense is theportrayal of your own values yes

(02:28:29):
, at the expense of being liked,and like that when, when taft
shared that, it resonated somuch with me, it's like I need
to figure out what my values areso I'm not betraying myself and
it's like that whole and that'salways an evolving process,
like I think.
And that kind of comes back towhere kelly joining the show has
really showed me a lot, becauseI see kelly constantly trying

(02:28:50):
to evolve and learn and like forlack of better words like do
better but just understand, likethe positions and like not just
you know, you know necessarilyfall back into what is
comfortable for her and it'slike I love that from everyone
here.
And, of course, marie is likealways, always there to catch
all of us.
So it's like you know, thewhole team here is just

(02:29:12):
wonderful and it's inspiring tosee, like where this can go, I
feel like I don't know how y'allfeel.

Speaker 2 (02:29:18):
I feel like I have learned stuff from you and your
perspectives that have changedmy mind on some things.
Like I used to hold theposition that the trans
community would be fine if wejust transitioned people earlier
.
This show has shaken mydelusions on that.
I do not believe that's thecase and I think that's the
value of real conversations witheach other, so we can learn,

(02:29:44):
like this is such a weird,unusual experience to go through
and I just think, like ifsisters can't really be honest
with each other without thesefringe politics forcing us to
say stuff, we don't think I justI don't't know how, I don't
know what the point oftransition is like.
Isn't it for us to all find outwhat's true inside of us and

(02:30:06):
where we need to go?
Like we need a more honestconversation it used to be.

Speaker 4 (02:30:11):
I don't know if it is anymore what do you mean by
that?
because it.
It's not about like, oh, us, acommunity anymore, us like
saying how we actually feel.
It's just saying whatever isthe most liberal PC bullshit and
the most accepting to, for Idon't know what for anymore.
It used to be to like get onthe liberal side to, I guess,

(02:30:33):
progress in politics, but nowit's like I don't even know if
that's the way the world's goingwith.
How many people just voted forDonald Trump the other day, you
know?
So it's like I don't.
I don't even know what thepoint is anymore in being a
liberal.
Pick me, because it's notgetting us anywhere.
It's just destroying thecommunity.
I think it's so ironic thatshe's making a post acting like
we're the ones destroying thecommunity, when I think she is.

(02:30:54):
She's a part of the problem,not us.
We're the ones that are openingup the discussions that are
like having the toughconversations, when all she's
doing is posting some bullshitfor likes and tweets.

Speaker 1 (02:31:04):
Yes, and I think I think the other another thing to
kind of help maybe maybe dampenthe outrage here, because it is
easy to see, it is easy to kindof view that from it.
From that perspective, I thinkI always remember like how, how
hard it is to like come to gripswith yourself being trans, and
I think, and I don't know, maybemaybe she has some unresolved

(02:31:28):
parts of that.
What going on for her, becauselike that kind of, is what that?
Like that tweet you referencedbrie, like that is what that
reads to me like part oftransition is accepting your
biological sex and moving on.
Like that is, ironically, howthat needs to go, and it's like
I don't know if that's happenedthere and so if that critical
piece isn't there, there's goingto be a lot of other collateral

(02:31:49):
things and a lot of you know, Idon't know bad, negative
outcomes out of it, and so Idon't want to be too negative
and I think I will also try tosay something nice.

Speaker 2 (02:32:02):
India had a hit and I'm sure she's done many like
this where questions from boththe audience and the hosts, in a

(02:32:24):
way like as someone who alsodoes that professionally, I came
away really deeply impressed.
So I do think India at her bestis a really good advocate.
So you know, like this is abigger problem, my strategy with
everything does not need to beyour strategy.
A really good example, aaronReid, I got into a tiff with a

(02:32:48):
reporter yesterday talking aboutthe Lila Alcorn story a decade
ago and we were getting into itand saying I personally don't
think you can trust mainstreammedia to tell our stories like a
story about suicide.
And you know I was thinking as Iwas writing that, erin Reid, I
have a ton of issues with theway Erin Reid frames certain

(02:33:09):
things, but she does not have tomirror my opinion for me to
think directionally.
She's out there telling transstories and putting information
out there that's just not goingto be covered any other way.
So I don't go after Erin Reidpublicly, right, and I just I
don't know where this insecurityinside of ourselves comes from,

(02:33:32):
that if a trans woman is doingsomething differently, we gotta
like shut her down.
I don't think that's veryhelpful actually.

Speaker 1 (02:33:39):
Agree.

Speaker 4 (02:33:40):
Yeah, we need to be more connected, not divided like
that's the goal yeah, I don'tknow how you can say she could
ever be a good activist, thoughafter especially after you said
that tweet that she wrote abouthow she's more of a woman than
cis woman, it's like how do youcome back from that?
I mean I know I've said likecrazy shit, but at least I've
apologized.
She probably still believesthat.

(02:34:00):
I'm assuming, yeah, you wouldhave nothing to transition into.
If it wasn't for this woman, youwould have no idea who you are.
I mean, right like it's crazy.
Let's be honest it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (02:34:12):
It was such a politically dumb statement and,
you know, I really wish she'djust stuck getting into fights
with jk rowling.

Speaker 5 (02:34:18):
Jk rowling is the death star, so don't go up
against the death star until yougot the plans like like, that's
something we need to do morestrategically, I think yeah, I
also don't want to be like sonegative on her because I don't
like know that much about her atthe end of the day and so, like
most of my judgment is justlike withheld until I would know

(02:34:40):
that, and it really is justlike this particular tweet
judgment is just like withhelduntil I would know that and it
really is just like thisparticular tweet that I was like
this is like just so missingthe point that it's frustrating
and she could be like a totallycool person otherwise, but I
think in this instance, it'sjust not not a good
representation of the bestapproach to having discourse and

(02:35:02):
to maybe integrating ideas intothe community.
So I was disappointed to see it.

Speaker 2 (02:35:09):
That's such a sweet way to say that.
Well, I think we'd all agreethat if India wants to give our
whole host lineup of guestscoming in away, but it's a
problem that every single gendercritical TERF person on the

(02:35:33):
other side that I've reached outto that I've said hey, you want
to come have a conversationwith four trans women?
Yep, Like just instantly.
And if we're looking at moreactivists to come in, trans
activists to come in and have aconversation.
I find that to be verycloistered and it's like if you

(02:35:55):
can defend your ideas, like cometalk to us about it.
Maybe I'm wrong about somestuff I change my opinion on
stuff all the time but if you'renot willing to come on the show
and have a discussion with usin good faith, like it's only
going to be one side that thatperspective is coming out there.
So I really invite like anyfamous trans person out there in

(02:36:17):
this field, hit me up in my DMsLike we would love to have you
on the show.
We're trying to find the wayforward for our community here
and you know we will give you anopen floor and be very polite
to you yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4 (02:36:33):
I do just want to say I don't know india personally,
um, so this is I only know thetweet you just read and the
other one you the otherstatement she said previously I
probably was getting a littletoo emotional.
I just don't like when peoplewho clearly didn't watch more
than like a 30 second clipbefore making a statement.
I don't like when they justlike do some pick me bullshit
like that and just be hypocriteswhen they're doing the same

(02:36:53):
shit on the other side.
But yeah, I don't know, maybe Ishouldn't have been as hot
headed.
I definitely would want her tocome on here and I would love to
have a cool, level headedconversation with her if she's
willing to do that.
So I apologize if I was.

Speaker 2 (02:37:08):
I don't think you were too tough, I think.
I think she fires some shotsand she can take some.

Speaker 5 (02:37:13):
And I think that, like we should, you know, I
think it's important to beultimately honest about you know
how we feel and know ourpositions on things, and I think
it would be disingenuous if wewere to be like, oh, india, like
you know, nothing's wrong, likejust come and talk to us, like,
let's be honest, like we feltlike it was not a good

(02:37:34):
characterization of our show,that kind of you know, sold us,
you know, as something we're notso frustrating.
But, um, if we wanted to likego and talk and like work
through those differences,that's really important for sure
.

Speaker 1 (02:37:49):
Love it, absolutely All right.
Well, I just want to.
Can I close this out?
Great Thanks so much forhanging out with us today on
Dollcast.
It's always a blast unpackingthese topics with you.
Make sure to subscribe to ourYouTube channel, dollcast-r8n

(02:38:09):
that's Dollcast-R8N.
For more content, and follow uson TikTok at Dollcast for your
daily dose of insight andlaughter.
You can also check us out on xat doll cast show again, that's
doll cast show.
We can't do the show withoutyour support.
Until next time, stay fabulousand keep spreading the love.
That's me all right, brie.

(02:38:33):
This episode is terminated.
Taff, this episode isterminated.
And Kelly.
You heard it, folks.
Thank you for tuning in.

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