April 14, 2025 • 46 mins
Dr. Michael Gurian, New York Times bestselling author of 32 books, takes us deep into the crisis facing boys today with his latest book "Boys: A Rescue Plan" where he offers a roadmap for raising healthy and fulfilled men. This conversation reveals what Dr. Gurian calls "a mismatch of the male brain with our systems." Drawing from neurobiological research, he demonstrates how male brains develop and function differently from female brains—not better or worse, just different. Yet our educational, counseling, and family systems often fail to accommodate these differences, leaving boys struggling and vulnerable.
Dr. Gurian challenges the big three; academic, political and media influences and extremes in the gender debate, offering a science-based perspective. He introduces the concept of "bridge brains"—individuals whose brain patterns fall between typical male and female—and makes crucial distinctions between biological sex and social gender constructs. His definition of healthy manhood as "a loving, wise, and successful male adult" provides a positive framework for male development beyond toxic stereotypes.
Join us to hear Dr. Gurian's guidance for parents and professionals working with gender-questioning youth. By distinguishing between "gender dysphoria" and "brain sex dysphoria," he advocates for supportive approaches that acknowledge biological realities while respecting individual experiences. This conversation offers practical wisdom for anyone concerned about the well-being of boys and young men in today's complex world.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello folks, thanks for joining us on Head Inside
Mental Health, featuringconversations about mental
health and substance usetreatment, with experts from
across the country sharing theirthoughts and insights on the
world of behavioral health care.
Broadcasting on WPBM 1037, thevoice of Asheville independent
commercial free radio, I'm ToddWeatherly, your host,
(00:20):
therapeutic consultant andbehavioral health expert.
With me today I have an honorand distinguished guest who I
got to meet in person at one ofhis trainings is Dr Michael
Gurian.
Dr Gurian is a New York Timesbestselling author of 32 books
what do you like?
Do you have any free time?
Published in 23 languages.
(00:40):
As a marriage and familycounselor and social philosopher
, he has pioneered efforts tobring neurobiology and brain
research into homes, schools,corporations and public policy.
Dr Gurian is co-founder of theGurian Institute, which conducts
research internationally,speaker, trainer and consultant
to help professionals, schools,agencies and organizations
(01:07):
better understand and assess theneeds of both sexes and all
genders and most effectivelyintervene and work with children
and adults from birth throughchildhood.
Michael has spoken for theUnited Nations on violence
against women, providedinformation on boys and girls'
educational needs to the WhiteHouse and briefed members of the
114th Congress on the BoyCrisis in America.
(01:27):
A number of Michael's bookshave sparked national debate,
including the Wonder of Boys,the Wonder of Girls Boys and
Girls Learn Differently inLeadership and the Sexes Co-host
of the Wonder of Parentingpodcast as well.
But today I'm pleased to havehim joining us to talk about his
latest book, boys a RescuePlant Moving Beyond the Politics
(01:48):
of Masculinity to Healthy MaleDevelopment.
Dr Gurian, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Thanks for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Thank you, I'm going to do a little promo.
I got the book.
It was not signed.
I'll just have to get thatlater, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
But you know, I've gotten to be in a presentation
and experience some of your workfirsthand, which, as a
facilitator and a presentermyself, I give you the
compliment of really enjoyingthe entire day and not being
bored for one moment.
So very engaging and wonderfulpresentation.
(02:25):
But it's also full of uh, fullof a lot of information, uh, and
one of the one of the pieces tome was a lot of these
statistics about, about boysspecifically.
We'll focus on boys for this oneright, um, but you know the
amount of violence theyencounter, the, the, the amount
of poor educational performancethat they suffer from and endure
(02:49):
, how many more of them are injail, how many more of them will
suffer from suicide and violentsuicide and be successful at it
, and there's just this widenumber of statistics that are
out there about how boys and menexperience these things at much
greater levels than women do,than girls and women.
So it's a little startlingbecause I think that it points
(03:13):
at something that you talk aboutin this book and have talked
about at other times, which isthe vulnerability of boys and
men and how is really difficultfor a lot of our society kind of
play with like being a man andbeing vulnerable.
That's not okay.
Right, tell me a little.
(03:33):
Just give us the.
Give us a little bit of thesample of of how this found its
way into your work and how itbecame a focus of of working
with schools and educators andgovernments and everything else
and and you know, feel free totalk about the big three
government, education oracademics and media.
How did that find its way intoyour work?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, well, you know it's.
It's a good question.
I, I, um, I started out yearsago, so we're talking about late
eighties, years ago, so we'retalking about late 80s, and I
was already doing research on.
I was very fascinated with whatwould the genetics be for male,
female, because I had livedoverseas as a kid via my parents
(04:17):
who worked overseas and andwherever I would go, even if we
didn't have the language, uslittle boys were playing with
other little boys and you didn'treally need the language you
know, and girls were playingwith girls and and I just
intuited right that there wassomething going on.
And I'm, I'm 66.
I'm born in 1958.
So I came up in the era whereit's all socialization, you know
(04:39):
sex, gender, it's allsocialization.
And we've seen a resurgence ofthat kind of kind of academic
programming thing socializationand we've seen a resurgence of
that kind of kind of academicprogramming thing, um, the last
five, ten years and um, but Iknew that couldn't be right.
I mean, it couldn't be that Icould go to india and we get to
india and suddenly I'm playingwith boys with no language, but
but it's very clear thatsomething's going on.
So, late 80s, starting to try tostudy what you could know of
(05:02):
genetics and then and brainresearch.
So I was trying to get a littlebrain scans to try to study
what you could know of geneticsand brain research.
So I was trying to get a littlebrain scans to try to see what
are the differences between maleand female brain.
And if they existed, thenthey're going to come in on the
genetics because we see themworldwide, so they're everywhere
, right?
So there's got to be somethingwith the XX and the XY.
So luckily there were otherpeople earlier in the eighties
(05:25):
who were looking at this inadults.
So what I ended up doing is Iended up studying it,
discovering it, finding it out,you know, thanks to them.
And then I did it for childdevelopment.
So the wonder of boys is my wasmy fifth book, and that was in
mid nineties, so 30 years ago,and in that book then I started
asserting the brain research andsaying, ok, look, we got to
(05:46):
look at the fact that this isrobust, worldwide.
Race doesn't matter for this,culture doesn't matter for this.
There are male patterns andfemale patterns.
When was that?
(06:06):
In the schools we were losingour boys.
The girls are doing much betterthan the boys in school.
And here are the reasons interms of male brain, the
mismatch of the male brain withthe school system.
Now, in that era, mid 90s, thatwas the era of girls are in
trouble, girls are fallingbehind, boys have everything.
Boys are doing great, right.
So I was sort of counterculture,saying this was in the wonder
of boys saying, yeah, that's, Ihave two daughters.
Obviously I support girls andwomen.
(06:28):
Of course we do.
I'm a good feminist.
But we're missing somethinghere.
Um, the boys are actually theones who are struggling much
more.
They get 70% of the D's and F'sand what's happening now was
true 30 years ago, you know.
Um it that has not changed.
In some areas it's gotten worse.
The male test scores are not asgood as female.
(06:48):
The male discipline referralsto principal, vice principal,
head of school, assistant, headof school, those are, you know,
off the charts compared to girls.
The amount of violence thatboys are experiencing, you know,
and you listed it suicide.
And then I started talking aboutmale type depression, that
that's different than femaletype depression.
So what I, what I've beentrying to do, is, because of
(07:09):
this initial kind of intuition,based on my childhood, that
something must be going on.
That's, that's transcultural,that's, you know, genetic,
that's brain-based in terms ofmale, female and the application
of it to child development thatwe could develop assets to help
boys and girls.
(07:30):
So right around then we did atwo-year pilot at the Korean
Institute was formed and we dida two-year pilot out of
University of Missouri, kansasCity, six school districts there
, and kind of proved the thesisthat, okay, if we train teachers
, therapists, counselors,everybody in the big three which
I call academics, government,media, if we could get them
(07:50):
trained in this male-femalebrain difference and how robust
and powerful this is, then thesystems could shift and we could
get systems to pay attention tothis and therefore then the
systems could serve the kidsbetter.
And so primary systems I've donecorporate and so on but primary
systems you know where I'mknown for would be in school
(08:13):
systems, counseling.
You know anything having to dowith where we as adults meet
boys and girls.
You know women and men and ofcourse and of course.
So, starting all the way backwith Wonder of Boys, I was I
already was arguing, as we know,that there's a spectrum for
male and female.
So you have and those are folkswho would now show up as gender
(08:34):
fluid, trans, intersex, thatthere's a spectrum, but at the
same time male and female brainscan so differently that even
you know we can even look attrans scans and we can see
everything.
So it started with an intuition, and then it led to research
overseas, and then it led to andthen went to brain scans.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
brain scans, yeah, I definitely.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I want everything to be scan based, like I want all
of my work to be science based.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah Well, you know to a certain extent, not gender
is important.
The differences between gendersare important.
But if you take a brain scan,what you're looking at, you know
I might not.
You might see it, I might notsee it.
A lay person is definitely notgoing to see it, teachers
probably won't see it.
But I'm looking at a brain scan.
I don't know whether that'smale or female, but what I can
(09:27):
tell you about this brain scanis this person is going to
respond to this kind ofeducational environment versus
this one better.
And you know, I came out of themaster's in education but an
experiential ed, and we alwaystry to address these differences
through.
You know Colb's learning styles.
You know there's you've got allthese different kinds of
learners in a classroom.
Let's try and figure out a wayto address, to engage in a
process that engages alllearners.
I think you've gotten a littlefurther to the base where it's.
(09:48):
You know you've got you've gotgenders in a classroom and they
operate differently, theysocialize differently, they
learn differently.
You know just simple thingslike boys are easier to learn to
write if they get to draw firstand just little pieces like
that.
I mean we always ran into thebarrier that teachers were
worried they're going to have toimplement this whole new
curriculum design there in theirclassroom and like, eh, we
(10:12):
can't do that, but if they justhave this basic information,
it's like, look, just walk toyour learner and know that
there's some differences.
You've got a few tricks herethat can help you make that
person a better educatedindividual and be more
successful in their academic.
You know and we could go evenfurther you know, a young, a
young boy, who becomessuccessful in academics versus
failing in academics becomessomeone who's probably better
(10:34):
socialized, more well-liked, hasbetter self-esteem.
Like they end up being moresuccessful adult, largely
because they don't suffer fromthese often traumatic events
that are involved in failing inacademics early on.
So the piece that I reallywanted to do and I really
enjoyed reading the book, butthe quote that I pulled out of
(10:58):
here and I think it speaks tonot only what is it that happens
to men or to boys in theclassroom, right, but to men in
general and you talk about theideology, the fragility of males
is right in front of us.
We're missing it but we neglectand avoid it.
(11:18):
The dominant themes of toxicmasculinity and masculine
privilege have a bit of worth,but they don't solve the social
problems because they dismissthe fragile male, the boy who's
suffering and the man who isadrift.
And I pull that quote outbecause toxic masculinity is
such, it's this big terminologythat we've got going on.
(11:40):
I always tell people andsomething I appreciate about the
work that's here is that, youknow, let's move towards
something, not away fromsomething.
You know we can talk about whatwe don't want to be, but what
do we want to be?
Basic masculinity, male, theuber male, this alpha overdone
(12:04):
kind of version that you know amale's not supposed to become,
or if they.
Well, depending on the circle,you sit in right and then
there's the fragile male that wedismiss and everything else.
Who's the male that exists inyour mind in between these two
kinds of poles, where they'rehealthy and they're adapted and
they feel like they belong inthe world?
(12:24):
What does that look like to you?
What's this?
What's a version of healthymale?
What would you say about that?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Well, I so.
Whenever I'm asked you knowwhat is a man?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I always say.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I always say a man is , and it will answer the
question A man is a loving, wiseand successful male adult.
Loving, wise and successfulmale adult.
So every one of us who are X, y, who have a Y, we're going to
(13:15):
grow up, go through puberty.
We're going to become maleadults because our bodies will
and our brains will change, butwill we be loving, wise and
successful?
So that's the man part.
A man is a loving, wise andsuccessful male adult.
And the approach you have muchto do with what's going on with
our boys and it's a social frameand it, you know, it's a
sociological frame basically,and it goes along with started
(13:37):
in feminist sociology about 50some years ago, and we've all
put it to good use.
There's good use to it, um, butit doesn't really get at, um,
what boys are experiencing andum, and just saying, well,
either the reason boys do badthings is because of too much
masculinity or the reason theydon't grow up is because of too
(14:00):
little masculinity.
Really, either way is very softyeah, so poor way to address it
either way, right, what boys aretrying to do, right is they're
trying to become good men.
So they're trying to becomeloving, wise and successful.
Good, you know, men.
And for them to do that, right,we have to raise them.
So the whole system has toraise them well.
Uh, the family system has toraise them well.
(14:23):
And you know from, know fromthe book, and you know all the
way back in Wonder of Boys I'mtalking about.
We want to be these good men.
We got to raise them in a threefamily system.
We got to have a nuclear family, an extended family and a
tribal family, and they got tohave male influence in all three
of those families, especiallyonce they hit puberty and
adolescence.
Here's the science of why.
There's a lot of really goodscience around that brain
(14:44):
science.
And so they got to have that.
Then the educational system hasto see them as males and has to
raise them or educate them,mentor them as males so that
they also become loving, wiseand successful male adults.
And then counseling systems,right, right, have to we we, as
(15:06):
you know, I come from the psychfield and the education field
right, we in the psych fieldhave to counsel them, um, as you
know to become loving, wise andsuccessful male adults, and
maybe five percent of what wewill do will be talking to them
about masculinity.
95 of it is we got to work withthem as males.
So so we have to like changeour counseling systems.
(15:28):
You know we can't be havingthem sit for 50 minutes Ain't
going to work, they're going toleave counseling.
It's not a fit for their brain,it's a mismatch of their brains
with our system.
And the school is the same sitlisten.
Uh, not not a good match formale brain.
And so the educational systemalso has to help them become
loving, wise and successful, and, uh, so that means changing
(15:51):
classrooms.
What you know what I callsystemic change, which is that
they, they don't need a newcurriculum.
You, you're, you're very right,you know.
They don't need a two milliondollar curriculum to do math in
such and such a way.
Um, what they need is and itcosts very, very little is they
just need systemic change.
They need to see the brain scans, get the training stuff that
(16:11):
they should have had if wedidn't have all of this kind of
sociological argument in college.
They would have seen the brainscans when they went to college
and grad school, and you and Iwould have seen them at grad
school and college, and then wewould be able to set up our
systems to do better for bothgirls and boys, women and men.
So it's a mismatch of the malebrain with our systems, the
(16:34):
systems that are generatedthrough the big three.
That's the mismatch.
It's not really you know, it'snot really much about
masculinity, even though we loveto talk about it Right?
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Well, it's, you know you're saying it, of course it's
.
It's recognize and acknowledgethat there are differences, like
we were even struggling withthat piece to a certain extent.
And in our systems todaythere's this recognition and
acknowledgement that there'sthis difference and that
difference can be.
You know, if you're a teacheror if you're a parent, that you
can be effective inacknowledging that there's a
(17:06):
difference here.
And there's a way I might treatmy son versus my daughter, this
boy in a classroom versus agirl in the classroom.
And you know, now we trip intothe hot and delicate territory
of gender fluidity, right, hotand delicate territory of gender
(17:27):
fluidity, right?
Um, and I, I want to, I want tobring to bear kind of
comparative ideologies here andget your response to it, because
, in truth, you've alreadyresponded to this.
I love it and I've got a quotein the book that I'm that I like
to bring out.
But, um, you know, trying, Iwon't give him too much credit,
but you know, you've got JordanPeterson out there and he is, I
(17:48):
think he doubles down on a lotof the masculinity stuff.
He makes some points that arenot necessarily in error and one
of them that he talks about, hedoes it at length in a variety
of ways.
But you've got a genderfluidity and you've got members
of the LGBTQ community that areidentifying this individual
(18:12):
maybe a boy or a girl.
They're a boy and they feellike they're a girl, and that
individual is trapped in a bodyfrom birth.
They're just trying to emerge.
There's an idea about that asgender identity.
Then there's sex.
What is your gender?
What biological organs do youhave?
What does your brain scan looklike?
(18:33):
And they tend to get mashedtogether.
Jordan will go in and he'll sayyou know, one is a social
construct gender fluidity andgender is a social construct,
whereas sex is not.
Sex is a biological.
You know is something that youhave biologically and that
exists with you.
But then, all of a sudden, theargument starts to get
(18:55):
hyperbolic, it starts to takesides and everything else, and
this is where I would probablypull out your quote, which I
really like, having a personalexperience with transgender
children myself as a childadvocate and this was something
you did in response to somebodywho was arguing with you.
As a child advocate, I'm anadvocate for all children,
(19:17):
including trans, gay, intersexand gender nonconforming.
But human sex exists in 2024,and now 2025, just as much as it
did in the past and as much asit will in the future.
It is an immutable biologicalreality that predates our
present experiments with gender.
The term cisgender is notaccurate to that reality because
(19:38):
of the assumption that sex as aculture is a.
Sex is a culture construct.
Gender is a culture construct,but sex is not, and I think you
see a lot of people havingstrong reactions to that, and I
really love the way that youtalk about it in this book.
How is it that you bring thisto government and education and
(20:00):
everything else?
How do you soften the blow, soto speak, and give it to them in
a way that feels approachablebut also doesn't disregard this
fluidity piece that we knowexists in our community?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
So.
What I advocate, as you know,in this book, more than in any
other previously, is that westop using as much as possible
in the big three so academics,government, media which means
spreading through the wholesociety.
We stop hitting sex and genderagainst each other and we use
(20:32):
the term sex gender.
So, instead of, you know,saying gender, which is what the
term that's used for everything, now, right, we say sex gender
because sex does come first, italways will, right, it has for a
million years, it will foranother million years.
So sex comes first, it's wiredin, and gender is a social
(20:53):
construct, as you've noted, andthe social construct comes
second.
So 30 years ago, just like now,we knew all about the spectrum.
Right posited then was that weshould use the term bridge brain
for what now we call genderfluidity, and that that will
(21:15):
really, really help kids.
At the same time, trans is adifferent category because we
can scan trans brains and youknow, boys at Rescue Plan has
all of this research in there,so people are going to look at
it.
We can scan trans brains and wecan see that up to 30 brain
centers in a trans brain areoperating like the other sex
right.
So they may have a male bodyand genitalia, but their brain
(21:37):
is operating more like, muchmore like a female brain.
So that's an extreme bridgebrain.
So a gender fluid person is abridge brain.
They're not trans, they're abridge brain.
They're somewhere in between,in their own minds they're.
They're kind of in between.
They're still female, they'resomewhere in between in their
own minds they're kind of inbetween.
They're still female, they'restill male.
But there's a wide spectrum ofwhat is female.
Forty four billion people arefemale, right.
(21:58):
So wide spectrum of femalebrain and we can scan it and see
it.
And then wide spectrum of malebrain.
We can scan it and see it.
And gender fluid is kind of inthe middle, not trans, but kind
of in the middle.
So bridge brain, and I actuallyit's.
I think it's much healthier tohelp a gender fluid person and
say, oh, you're, you know, let'slook okay you're not trans
(22:21):
you're saying you're trans butactually you're not.
We can see that you're not trans.
This is a confusion of language.
Um, you're a bridge brain andum, just know that and we accept
you as that.
So you don't have to assert.
You don't have to assert genderand take it over to trans when
you're not trans, which can leadif you're trans, that leads to
(22:43):
a whole other medical situation.
Let's look at you as genderfluid.
Let's look at the socialconstruct that you like, the
gender roles you like.
We'll look at that with you,trans will be here, and intersex
, intersex also.
You know there's we've gotaround, we don't know two, three
million Americans who areintersex.
That's specific.
You have both sets of genitalia, potentially, or your XXYXYY,
(23:07):
so that affects your brain.
So your intersex.
So these are actually differentcategories, but sex always
comes first.
So the movement to makeeverything gender is where we
get in trouble and where we dothings medically that we
shouldn't be doing.
You know, on children,shouldn't be doing those things
on children, they're children.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
They're 12 years old.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
They may have heard from someone that they're trans
now.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
But maybe they lock onto something that somebody
said and they want to do thattoo, right?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, most of them are not trans.
It's social contagion and it'sbad terminology.
They're not trans.
Again, we can scan a transbrain and see trans.
They're gender fluid.
They would be bridge brains.
So what I do, as you know, is Itake a very moderate approach.
I just try to get everyone tolook at all the actual
categories, like LGB, you know,lesbian, gay, bisexual that's
(24:00):
wired in.
We knew that all the way back30 years ago.
So that's wired in.
That isn't that, you know.
That's its own category.
And, of course, we're going togive equal rights to people who
are LGB.
It's wired in.
Just the way heterosexuality iswired in.
Trans is wired in.
Intersex is wired in genderfluidity.
That's much more of a bridgebrain.
And so I'm trying to helpeveryone look at all the
categories, because saying justgender, which is what we do for
(24:23):
everything, is getting us in allsorts of trouble.
So therefore, we are notactually taking care of our boys
, we're not taking care of ourgirls, who are sex right, that's
sex.
We are not taking care of ourmen.
We are not taking care of ourwomen.
That's sex.
We got to make sure to rememberthat sex is the baseline.
So if we mismatch our systemsto males or females anywhere.
(24:47):
We're mismatching to their sex,and then gender social
construct comes later.
We include that.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Well, and it, you know, I think here's a good
metaphor or a good, you know,comparative.
It's like if you've got a,let's say, you've got an
individual, an adult, that istransitioned, and they're they
were female to male and they,they transit, you know, they
were able to get half thesurgery, but they haven't gotten
all the surgery.
If, for some reason, and maybethere was a shortage on
testosterone and so on and soforth, and suddenly their
(25:20):
menstrual cycle returns, you'vegot to go to the doctor.
Well, you probably want to goto a doctor who knows something
about menstrual cycles.
If that's where your issueexists, regardless of how you
identify, regardless of thething that you've tried to make
changes in and do all thosethings.
We're not arguing any of thatwith you.
But if you're going to go getmedical care for this, that
(25:43):
organ is a female organ and youneed to go to somebody who knows
how to work with and treat afemale organ, to somebody who
knows how to work with and treata female organ.
And you know, I think we bringthat, you know, bring this back
to the brain, right All of asudden.
It's like if we look at thebrain and we stop getting in
trouble with this terminologythen we can actually address
(26:03):
people kind of where they live.
And just like we know thatbrain development that you know,
you see, in children there'slots of neurodendritic activity,
a lot of it, and as we growolder you lose neurons, pathways
start to solidify and you'vegot this brain development piece
.
That happens for folks.
So even in a brain that isbridge-brained, it might lean in
(26:31):
one direction or in another andstart to form, if you will,
right.
And because the brain, you knowneuroplasticity, is one of the
one of the great discoveries ofour century.
Ultimately that we, we knowthat the brain can change and it
can do, mark you know,remarkable and wondrous things
in both directions.
The question I have for you isIn the world, you know, outside
of environments, that we, youknow, we hopefully, can control.
(26:55):
We don't always do it well andyour work is helping people do
it well, but you know, a schoolenvironment or a classroom
environment is a controlledenvironment.
The media environment is not acontrolled environment, it's
designed for completelyalternative purposes.
So let's say, for the bridgebrain that lives out in the
(27:15):
world, that is trying to findwe're talking about maybe a
young adult, mid to late teenstrying to find an identity and
we know from attachment theorywe're talking about identity at
these ages being really, reallyimportant and things that can go
(27:36):
awry if they're not done well.
So we've got an individual.
Maybe they're bridge-brainedand they're trying to find an
identity and they're arguingwith this set of people or with
a parent about what they'recalled, what they're called.
You know what gender they'rebeing identified for.
How are you educating parentson navigating that piece?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, yeah, I do it the same way I do in my
counseling practice.
It's a both and of course, Imean you're still your sex and
and you're you're probably abridge brain sex and and you're,
you're probably a bridge brain.
So, trying to get everyone thelanguage, like with clients, I
always I try to figure out, andparents can do this too.
(28:18):
That's part of why I writethese books, so parents can read
them and educators, you know,so that they're you can grab it.
And one of the things parentscan use is you're okay, you know
what.
You're probably a bridge brain.
You're saying you're trans, sonor daughter, you're is.
You're okay, you know what.
You're probably a bridge brain.
You're saying you're trans, sonor daughter.
You're saying you're trans,likely it is.
You're a bridge brain.
If you, if you're presentingwith, you have, if you have,
(28:39):
gender dysphoria, okay, that'sdysphoria, which is depression.
So we can treat that right bylooking at who you are and if
you get out of all of thislanguage stuff that's confusing,
let's just look of all of thislanguage stuff that's confusing,
let's just look at your brain.
It's your brain that'sdepressed, right, it's your
brain, body that's depressed.
Let's go there.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
This is a condition.
Let's treat the condition.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Gender dysphoria.
It's dysphoria, right, so let'stry to help you, and bridge
brain is a way to help you.
So it seems like you're abridge brain and here are the
qualities of a bridge brain, youknow, which are going to be
sort of the same qualities ofsomeone who is saying they're
gender fluid and um, and thensomewhere in there we, we, we as
(29:21):
parents, are going to betalking with the caregivers and
saying does this child, does mychild, have gender dysphoria or
brain sex dysphoria?
So brain sex dysphoria isanother thing that I'm
advocating that we take into ourDSM doesn't exist now.
Everything's gender dysphoria.
So that's just creates a lot ofproblems for parents, for
therapists, for educators, foreveryone.
Everything is gender dysphoria.
(29:42):
Gender is a social construct.
The term is not right for whatis actually going on with our
kids, but if we want to use it,okay, let's differentiate gender
dysphoria from brain sexdysphoria.
A trans person has brain sexdysphoria.
They are depressed becausetheir brain sex does not match
their reproductive biology, andthat is a much more significant
(30:05):
disorder and much more can leadto suicide, let's say, than
gender dysphoria disorder, andmuch more can lead to suicide,
let's say, than gender dysphoria, which is, I'm a bridge brain
and I don't fit and I'm not surewhich way to lean Right.
Yeah, well, and the great thingabout a bridge brain is you
don't have to pick.
You know the parents and theteachers and the therapists and
(30:26):
the psychiatrists.
Everyone is looking and saying,yeah, but you know, you're not
trans, you're a bridge brain.
So now so part of what has tohappen is parents and the
psychiatrist.
Everyone is looking and saying,yeah, but you're not trans,
you're a bridge brain.
So part of what has to happenis parents and the whole system.
Parents have to help schoolsystems and everyone get
re-educated toward what'sactually going on.
And so, rather than everyonegetting educated toward
(30:49):
everything's gender dysphoria,and so when you have gender
dysphoria, you immediately gointo gender affirming care.
We have to, we have to look at,educate the systems, and
parents can advocate for thiseducate the system so that they
can differentiate.
And as the parents and the kidsdifferentiate, the systems
differentiate.
So then the systems willunderstand what care to give
what which child and the systemswill.
(31:09):
Then you know, the parents willadvocate and say I do think my
child has brain sex dysphoria,or I do think my child has
gender dysphoria, but not brainsex dysphoria, and then the
systems will do brain scans andwill look and see, okay, you
have, you actually are trans,you have a brain sex dysphoria
or and in the again, themajority of cases of kids who
(31:32):
present with gender dysphoria,the systems will look at them
and say, okay, you have genderdysphoria, not brain sex
dysphoria, so gender affirmingcare, what we call that, which
is, we're going to start you onbiological interventions
actually not a fit for you,right, because you're not trans,
so not a fit for you.
We're going to do these otherthings and parents, which is
going to be, you know,medication, counseling, you know
(31:53):
, and and parents need to beadvocating for that and this
thing that happened, like in thestate of California, where
parents are not going to be told, so the school doesn't have to
tell the parents if a childcomes in and says, well, I have
gender dysphoria.
Right, ok, that is not a goodmove.
I mean, of course there's goingto be backlash.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
California's making a lot of mistakes these days.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, I mean, you know the parents need to be
involved, helping their kids,and as the parents get educated,
then they won't overreact,they'll understand that this is
a both-and you know.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
They might Some do.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
But you know they might some do, but you know, I
think, well, you know, we'retalking about trying to make
societal change is what we'retalking about.
Right, right, and we got toeducate everyone.
It's just like with gay,lesbian, LGBT or gay.
You know, I mean, 30 years ago,parents were overreacting to
that much more than they are now.
Yeah, some still do Stages ofchange.
Oh, absolutely, we have beenable to educate and say, hey,
this is hardwired, here's how itworks.
You know, please do not beoverreacting to this.
Please support your child, andmost parents are.
There are still some whooverreact, but most parents are.
Well, the same has to happenhere with sex gender.
We got to get everyone educatedin what's actually going on,
(33:09):
because there's so much varietyin the brain.
And to your point aboutneuroplasticity, let me just say
this one thing Sex gender isnot highly plastic, right?
So sex on the brain is nothighly plastic.
So when we talk aboutneuroplasticity, right, as you
know, we're talking about we cantrain the brain to do these
different things and it'llcreate bypasses, right, we'll
(33:32):
have different.
Different synapses will fillinto different damage the brain
pathways right yeah, especiallytrauma.
You know you haveneuroplasticity, you can create
different pathways, but sex ishardwired on the genes in utero,
so we come out with the sex onour brain.
Uh, so I don't want listenersto think, okay, well, because I
(33:54):
say I'm gender fluid, I am nowbecause I say that I'm rewiring
my brain for sex, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
A bridge brain person .
An individual might decide theywant to identify as a certain
gender.
That doesn't necessarily maketheir brain different in the way
that it was in utero.
Is that would that?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
yeah, they still have a bridge brain is also
hardwired in utero.
So right, the spectrum ishardwired in utero and it's just
that as we grow up, we learnwho we are and we see where we
fit on the spectrum and you'llhave some people who are extreme
male on the spectrum.
Uh, the great example would beaction stars and you know, of
(34:33):
course, the individuals are notthat.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
But your classic masculine male yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Well, yeah, if you see an Arnold Schwarzenegger,
what you're seeing, let's say,is you're seeing someone who we
would just use as icon ofextreme male brain, even though
Arnold Schwarzenegger isn'tnecessarily but the Terminator
or whoever he's playing, I'd saythat would be extreme male
brain, which and you're going tosee this develop that brain is
not going to use as many words,it's not going to connect as
many words to feelings as eventhe average male brain is.
(35:01):
It's going to be more spatial,mechanical, more visual, graphic
, more physical, you know, morecerebellum dependent.
You know way out on the one end, and then you know, then you
move, and you move, and you moveand you get closer to the
middle and then you have, ok,I'm a bridge brain.
Ok, well, how do I know I'm abridge brain?
(35:24):
If I'm male, the way I know I'ma bridge brain is that I can
connect more words to feelingsmore quickly.
So my words to feeling rationot only is more rapid, but it
has more depth.
So the more that a male brainmoves toward bridge brain, the
more we measure word to feelingratios, because that's the best
way to know if this is a bridgebrain.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Word to feeling ratio , because you can still have
very physical athletic bridgebrain males and for females the
same.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
very physical athletic bridge brain males and
for females, the same.
You know the extreme female uhbrain we know is the, is the
brain that uh is, is what wecall ultra feminine if we wanted
to use those language, but it'sthat brain that didn't get
actually a lot of thetestosterone, androgenic
chemical, and so that brain isway out on soft color, high word
(36:12):
to feeling ratio, not spatial.
So spatial is objects movingthrough space, not spatial, way,
way out on the extreme.
And then the more females gettoward the bridge, you know they
would have gotten a little moretestosterone.
And and then there we look atthem now and they look at
themselves and corporate worldloves this stuff because a lot
(36:32):
of these the bridge brainfemales go.
Oh yeah, I'm really spatial, Idon't use as many words, I'm
still female, but I'm more likewhat I think of as a male brain
or what you gurry and justshowed me brain scans of as a
male brain and she's a bridgebrain and she knows it and so,
um, that stuff's hardwired inand the soft wiring is how the
(36:56):
opportunities we give it and howit works in the world but it's
already hardwired, so it's notsex, is not neuroplastic.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Okay, I mean, that's a good distinction.
You know, the funny thing is isthat I, I kind of I ran into
the brain scans and you usethese in your presentation.
Of course, I ran into themprior to that because I've got
family members who aretransgender and the UCSF Child
and Adolescent Gender Center,which is, you know, doing a lot
(37:24):
of research, but a lot ofthere's, but a lot of what
they're doing when they'readvising families who are coming
in about, you know, should we?
And this is a lot, and this isa topic I'd love to hear your
opinion about.
But if you've got a child,that's gender dysphoria or sex
dysphoric, right, and they do abrain scan and like, yeah, well,
(37:47):
your little girl that's, youknow, got all the markers of, of
having the sex of a female doesin fact have what we see in the
averages, a male brain, andthat's why they feel this way
and it's and it's linked to theaffirmations and whether or not,
you know, drugs should be usedbefore the age of 16 and 17, and
(38:09):
all those kinds of things.
Their research is asking thesequestions and applying brain
research to it and saying theseare the things that should
inform any decision, regardlessof the age, etc.
Which is a pretty sophisticatedway to go about it.
You ask the average family hey,you need to go get some brain
scans when you're facing theseissues.
It could be an expensive thingto go get.
(38:30):
It's a fairly sophisticatedthing to kind of engage in until
it becomes normalized andeverything else.
What is your thought about?
You've got an individual thatis gender dysphoric or, excuse
me, sex dysphoric.
They mourn one sex and feellike the other, born one sex and
feel like the other, beingunder the age of, say, 16, 17,
18 or 19 and engaging inhormones and surgeries and so on
(38:57):
and so forth.
You know there's a.
There's a fairly fairly largepopulation of folks that say,
hey, don't touch them untileverything sorts itself out.
18 or 19 years of age.
Then you've got a.
You you've got a smallerpopulation of people that are
that are affirming as soon as,as soon as this individual
starts saying things like this,you want to start affirming
(39:18):
those things.
And that even includes etcetera, et cetera.
You know surgeries and and, andhormones and et cetera.
What are your?
What would you say to that?
Um, both the parties, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yep, absolutely.
Well, in Boys at Rescue Plan, Imean absolutely.
My point of view on it as amedical psychiatric professional
is I make it very clear I wouldfall.
I always am a both and person,I'm always kind of in the middle
, but I would fall.
In terms of child development,I would fall more on the side of
(39:49):
the folks who are saying don'tyou're very careful about what
you do for biologicalinterventions until that brain
and body has had the chance togo through puberty and get to?
You said 16, 17.
I mean, yeah, I think probablyit's going to fall out at 18,
just legally, right, justbecause the way each state's
(40:11):
going to do it.
But yeah, yeah, until they needto get through.
There are just too manynegative side effects.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, interrupting a process before it's complete.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah to overdoing it.
Okay Now, and I say in the book, and we want to remember that
hormone therapy, hormonereplacement, even puberty
blockers, those have alreadybeen used for decades, like, for
instance, for girls who aregetting their periods at seven
(40:45):
or eight, right, we have anumber of our young girls,
especially in the Western world,who are going through puberty
too early and their brainchemistry is off and we have
reasons for that happening.
We think it's coming throughthe chemicals that are coming
into their bodies via food andpollutants and so on.
So already puberty blockershave been used for that
population and they've been usedsuccessfully.
(41:06):
So it's not as if they're evilor something like that.
They're not.
And if they are needed to helpwith a condition that they will
help with, then it's okay.
But using them at the rates andthe levels that are going to
stop puberty beyond 10 or 11,where we want it to stop at
(41:29):
seven or eight.
We want to wait till you're 10or 11 for a girl to start going
through puberty.
Okay, if we say we're going touse the puberty blockers to stop
it completely all the waythrough, then I would argue, no,
that's too severe anintervention.
Yeah, it's going to affect.
It's going to have too manypotential negative effects like
sterility and all these thingsthat we shouldn't be doing to
children.
(41:49):
But that doesn't mean we can'thave gender affirming care.
If we reorient what genderaffirming care is, so if we say
to them more, like you described, where we go, either I can get
brain scans for you, or if wecan't afford them, or they don't
exist yet in our community,which they don't in many
communities then at least we canbe training our professionals
(42:10):
to be doing neuropsych batteriesthat help us to understand is
this person trans, is thisperson gender non-conforming
gender, non-binary, or are theytrans?
We can activate those sorts ofneuropsych batteries in our
profession and parents can askfor them for their child and we
can do them.
And then we can be affirming thechild in saying, okay, you know
(42:32):
, you're a bridge brain, here'show we'll work with you.
You're trans?
Um, we.
But at 12, we can't really knowyet, right, because the brain
really hasn't formed enough forus to absolutely know until you
go through puberty.
Um, because you can go throughpuberty and then some different
things can happen by 17.
Um, like even some trans kidswho say I'm absolutely trans by
(42:54):
17, they say, ooh, I was nottrans, I'm gay, but I couldn't
figure out who.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
I was, I was trans yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
So we have to do a both and um, but I definitely
would be against severebiological interventions for
these young people.
Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve it's all still too
early for the most significantthey weren't already medically
indicated, right exactly yeah,they need to be medically
indicated for something you know, something else than the child
(43:25):
says they're trans.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Well, I mean, it's just not enough it's a pretty
good rule for any kind ofintervention medical
intervention, you know, or forany kind of intervention of that
kind.
It's, you know, the is itmedically necessary?
There's your, there's yourmarker.
That's what you, as a doctor,you're telling you that a
procedure is medically necessarybecause of some condition that
might exist, there's your marker.
If you're doing it to, you know, experiment with the philosophy
(43:49):
this 12 year old has, in theirhead, hit the brakes.
You know what I mean.
So I, you know this.
Uh, it seems to me and you tellme whether or not you find this
statement to be correct that wecould make this whole thing a
lot simpler, that we could makeeverything the problems that
(44:11):
society is experiencing and allthese other pieces we can make
it a lot simpler for schools,for parents, for families, for
the government and et cetera, ifwe just kind of shift our ideas
about it a little bit.
Would you say that that's true,yep?
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yep, I absolutely would, and I'm noticing the time
, so I'm going to have to makethis my last answer, just
because of the time, because Ihave to do another podcast right
after this.
We can educate everybody on Imean, not just on rescuing our
(44:53):
boys, but specifically we have,as you know, one part of the
book is specifically to helppeople with sex, gender, so that
every system can understandwhat is going on, and we will
make it simpler if every systemgets educated in what is sex and
what is gender.
It sounds complicated.
It's like oh, now there areseven categories.
I just wanted gender dysphoria.
But no, actually, if we look ateach category and everyone is
(45:15):
trained to understand who fitsin each category, then we are
going to know what to do foreach child.
Going on right now is way toobroad and it's too political,
you know, whether on one end orthe other, and it's just not
giving parents and kids andpractitioners what they need.
(45:39):
It's a real failure.
Fortunately, I think, in thebig three academics, government
and media where they justdecided we're going to go this
one direction Either there isgender dysphoria or there's not,
and that's going to be it.
That can't work.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
We can dive into that rabbit hole a little bit the
politics and everything else butwe'll have to save that for
another time.
Dr Gurian, I want to thank youso much for joining me today and
I hope that everybody will pickup a copy of Boys a Rescue Plan
so that they can take a lookand be more versed about the
world that we live in, how tosupport our children.
Thank you so much for joiningthe show.
This has been Head InsideMental Health with Todd
(46:18):
Weatherly on WPBM 1037, theVoice of Asheville.
Take care, dr Gurian, it's goodto see you.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
You too, todd, thank you, thanks for all you're doing
.
Yeah, let's do it again.
Outro Music.
Hello folks, thanks for joining us on Head Inside
Mental Health, featuringconversations about mental
health and substance usetreatment, with experts from
across the country sharing theirthoughts and insights on the
world of behavioral health care.
Broadcasting on WPBM 1037, thevoice of Asheville independent
commercial free radio, I'm ToddWeatherly, your host,
(00:20):
therapeutic consultant andbehavioral health expert.
With me today I have an honorand distinguished guest who I
got to meet in person at one ofhis trainings is Dr Michael
Gurian.
Dr Gurian is a New York Timesbestselling author of 32 books
what do you like?
Do you have any free time?
Published in 23 languages.
(00:40):
As a marriage and familycounselor and social philosopher
, he has pioneered efforts tobring neurobiology and brain
research into homes, schools,corporations and public policy.
Dr Gurian is co-founder of theGurian Institute, which conducts
research internationally,speaker, trainer and consultant
to help professionals, schools,agencies and organizations
(01:07):
better understand and assess theneeds of both sexes and all
genders and most effectivelyintervene and work with children
and adults from birth throughchildhood.
Michael has spoken for theUnited Nations on violence
against women, providedinformation on boys and girls'
educational needs to the WhiteHouse and briefed members of the
114th Congress on the BoyCrisis in America.
(01:27):
A number of Michael's bookshave sparked national debate,
including the Wonder of Boys,the Wonder of Girls Boys and
Girls Learn Differently inLeadership and the Sexes Co-host
of the Wonder of Parentingpodcast as well.
But today I'm pleased to havehim joining us to talk about his
latest book, boys a RescuePlant Moving Beyond the Politics
(01:48):
of Masculinity to Healthy MaleDevelopment.
Dr Gurian, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Thanks for having me.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Thank you, I'm going to do a little promo.
I got the book.
It was not signed.
I'll just have to get thatlater, you know.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
But you know, I've gotten to be in a presentation
and experience some of your workfirsthand, which, as a
facilitator and a presentermyself, I give you the
compliment of really enjoyingthe entire day and not being
bored for one moment.
So very engaging and wonderfulpresentation.
(02:25):
But it's also full of uh, fullof a lot of information, uh, and
one of the one of the pieces tome was a lot of these
statistics about, about boysspecifically.
We'll focus on boys for this oneright, um, but you know the
amount of violence theyencounter, the, the, the amount
of poor educational performancethat they suffer from and endure
(02:49):
, how many more of them are injail, how many more of them will
suffer from suicide and violentsuicide and be successful at it
, and there's just this widenumber of statistics that are
out there about how boys and menexperience these things at much
greater levels than women do,than girls and women.
So it's a little startlingbecause I think that it points
(03:13):
at something that you talk aboutin this book and have talked
about at other times, which isthe vulnerability of boys and
men and how is really difficultfor a lot of our society kind of
play with like being a man andbeing vulnerable.
That's not okay.
Right, tell me a little.
(03:33):
Just give us the.
Give us a little bit of thesample of of how this found its
way into your work and how itbecame a focus of of working
with schools and educators andgovernments and everything else
and and you know, feel free totalk about the big three
government, education oracademics and media.
How did that find its way intoyour work?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, well, you know it's.
It's a good question.
I, I, um, I started out yearsago, so we're talking about late
eighties, years ago, so we'retalking about late 80s, and I
was already doing research on.
I was very fascinated with whatwould the genetics be for male,
female, because I had livedoverseas as a kid via my parents
(04:17):
who worked overseas and andwherever I would go, even if we
didn't have the language, uslittle boys were playing with
other little boys and you didn'treally need the language you
know, and girls were playingwith girls and and I just
intuited right that there wassomething going on.
And I'm, I'm 66.
I'm born in 1958.
So I came up in the era whereit's all socialization, you know
(04:39):
sex, gender, it's allsocialization.
And we've seen a resurgence ofthat kind of kind of academic
programming thing socializationand we've seen a resurgence of
that kind of kind of academicprogramming thing, um, the last
five, ten years and um, but Iknew that couldn't be right.
I mean, it couldn't be that Icould go to india and we get to
india and suddenly I'm playingwith boys with no language, but
but it's very clear thatsomething's going on.
So, late 80s, starting to try tostudy what you could know of
(05:02):
genetics and then and brainresearch.
So I was trying to get a littlebrain scans to try to study
what you could know of geneticsand brain research.
So I was trying to get a littlebrain scans to try to see what
are the differences between maleand female brain.
And if they existed, thenthey're going to come in on the
genetics because we see themworldwide, so they're everywhere
, right?
So there's got to be somethingwith the XX and the XY.
So luckily there were otherpeople earlier in the eighties
(05:25):
who were looking at this inadults.
So what I ended up doing is Iended up studying it,
discovering it, finding it out,you know, thanks to them.
And then I did it for childdevelopment.
So the wonder of boys is my wasmy fifth book, and that was in
mid nineties, so 30 years ago,and in that book then I started
asserting the brain research andsaying, ok, look, we got to
(05:46):
look at the fact that this isrobust, worldwide.
Race doesn't matter for this,culture doesn't matter for this.
There are male patterns andfemale patterns.
When was that?
(06:06):
In the schools we were losingour boys.
The girls are doing much betterthan the boys in school.
And here are the reasons interms of male brain, the
mismatch of the male brain withthe school system.
Now, in that era, mid 90s, thatwas the era of girls are in
trouble, girls are fallingbehind, boys have everything.
Boys are doing great, right.
So I was sort of counterculture,saying this was in the wonder
of boys saying, yeah, that's, Ihave two daughters.
Obviously I support girls andwomen.
(06:28):
Of course we do.
I'm a good feminist.
But we're missing somethinghere.
Um, the boys are actually theones who are struggling much
more.
They get 70% of the D's and F'sand what's happening now was
true 30 years ago, you know.
Um it that has not changed.
In some areas it's gotten worse.
The male test scores are not asgood as female.
(06:48):
The male discipline referralsto principal, vice principal,
head of school, assistant, headof school, those are, you know,
off the charts compared to girls.
The amount of violence thatboys are experiencing, you know,
and you listed it suicide.
And then I started talking aboutmale type depression, that
that's different than femaletype depression.
So what I, what I've beentrying to do, is, because of
(07:09):
this initial kind of intuition,based on my childhood, that
something must be going on.
That's, that's transcultural,that's, you know, genetic,
that's brain-based in terms ofmale, female and the application
of it to child development thatwe could develop assets to help
boys and girls.
(07:30):
So right around then we did atwo-year pilot at the Korean
Institute was formed and we dida two-year pilot out of
University of Missouri, kansasCity, six school districts there
, and kind of proved the thesisthat, okay, if we train teachers
, therapists, counselors,everybody in the big three which
I call academics, government,media, if we could get them
(07:50):
trained in this male-femalebrain difference and how robust
and powerful this is, then thesystems could shift and we could
get systems to pay attention tothis and therefore then the
systems could serve the kidsbetter.
And so primary systems I've donecorporate and so on but primary
systems you know where I'mknown for would be in school
(08:13):
systems, counseling.
You know anything having to dowith where we as adults meet
boys and girls.
You know women and men and ofcourse and of course.
So, starting all the way backwith Wonder of Boys, I was I
already was arguing, as we know,that there's a spectrum for
male and female.
So you have and those are folkswho would now show up as gender
(08:34):
fluid, trans, intersex, thatthere's a spectrum, but at the
same time male and female brainscan so differently that even
you know we can even look attrans scans and we can see
everything.
So it started with an intuition, and then it led to research
overseas, and then it led to andthen went to brain scans.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
brain scans, yeah, I definitely.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I want everything to be scan based, like I want all
of my work to be science based.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah Well, you know to a certain extent, not gender
is important.
The differences between gendersare important.
But if you take a brain scan,what you're looking at, you know
I might not.
You might see it, I might notsee it.
A lay person is definitely notgoing to see it, teachers
probably won't see it.
But I'm looking at a brain scan.
I don't know whether that'smale or female, but what I can
(09:27):
tell you about this brain scanis this person is going to
respond to this kind ofeducational environment versus
this one better.
And you know, I came out of themaster's in education but an
experiential ed, and we alwaystry to address these differences
through.
You know Colb's learning styles.
You know there's you've got allthese different kinds of
learners in a classroom.
Let's try and figure out a wayto address, to engage in a
process that engages alllearners.
I think you've gotten a littlefurther to the base where it's.
(09:48):
You know you've got you've gotgenders in a classroom and they
operate differently, theysocialize differently, they
learn differently.
You know just simple thingslike boys are easier to learn to
write if they get to draw firstand just little pieces like
that.
I mean we always ran into thebarrier that teachers were
worried they're going to have toimplement this whole new
curriculum design there in theirclassroom and like, eh, we
(10:12):
can't do that, but if they justhave this basic information,
it's like, look, just walk toyour learner and know that
there's some differences.
You've got a few tricks herethat can help you make that
person a better educatedindividual and be more
successful in their academic.
You know and we could go evenfurther you know, a young, a
young boy, who becomessuccessful in academics versus
failing in academics becomessomeone who's probably better
(10:34):
socialized, more well-liked, hasbetter self-esteem.
Like they end up being moresuccessful adult, largely
because they don't suffer fromthese often traumatic events
that are involved in failing inacademics early on.
So the piece that I reallywanted to do and I really
enjoyed reading the book, butthe quote that I pulled out of
(10:58):
here and I think it speaks tonot only what is it that happens
to men or to boys in theclassroom, right, but to men in
general and you talk about theideology, the fragility of males
is right in front of us.
We're missing it but we neglectand avoid it.
(11:18):
The dominant themes of toxicmasculinity and masculine
privilege have a bit of worth,but they don't solve the social
problems because they dismissthe fragile male, the boy who's
suffering and the man who isadrift.
And I pull that quote outbecause toxic masculinity is
such, it's this big terminologythat we've got going on.
(11:40):
I always tell people andsomething I appreciate about the
work that's here is that, youknow, let's move towards
something, not away fromsomething.
You know we can talk about whatwe don't want to be, but what
do we want to be?
Basic masculinity, male, theuber male, this alpha overdone
(12:04):
kind of version that you know amale's not supposed to become,
or if they.
Well, depending on the circle,you sit in right and then
there's the fragile male that wedismiss and everything else.
Who's the male that exists inyour mind in between these two
kinds of poles, where they'rehealthy and they're adapted and
they feel like they belong inthe world?
(12:24):
What does that look like to you?
What's this?
What's a version of healthymale?
What would you say about that?
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Well, I so.
Whenever I'm asked you knowwhat is a man?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I always say.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I always say a man is , and it will answer the
question A man is a loving, wiseand successful male adult.
Loving, wise and successfulmale adult.
So every one of us who are X, y, who have a Y, we're going to
(13:15):
grow up, go through puberty.
We're going to become maleadults because our bodies will
and our brains will change, butwill we be loving, wise and
successful?
So that's the man part.
A man is a loving, wise andsuccessful male adult.
And the approach you have muchto do with what's going on with
our boys and it's a social frameand it, you know, it's a
sociological frame basically,and it goes along with started
(13:37):
in feminist sociology about 50some years ago, and we've all
put it to good use.
There's good use to it, um, butit doesn't really get at, um,
what boys are experiencing andum, and just saying, well,
either the reason boys do badthings is because of too much
masculinity or the reason theydon't grow up is because of too
(14:00):
little masculinity.
Really, either way is very softyeah, so poor way to address it
either way, right, what boys aretrying to do, right is they're
trying to become good men.
So they're trying to becomeloving, wise and successful.
Good, you know, men.
And for them to do that, right,we have to raise them.
So the whole system has toraise them well.
Uh, the family system has toraise them well.
(14:23):
And you know from, know fromthe book, and you know all the
way back in Wonder of Boys I'mtalking about.
We want to be these good men.
We got to raise them in a threefamily system.
We got to have a nuclear family, an extended family and a
tribal family, and they got tohave male influence in all three
of those families, especiallyonce they hit puberty and
adolescence.
Here's the science of why.
There's a lot of really goodscience around that brain
(14:44):
science.
And so they got to have that.
Then the educational system hasto see them as males and has to
raise them or educate them,mentor them as males so that
they also become loving, wiseand successful male adults.
And then counseling systems,right, right, have to we we, as
(15:06):
you know, I come from the psychfield and the education field
right, we in the psych fieldhave to counsel them, um, as you
know to become loving, wise andsuccessful male adults, and
maybe five percent of what wewill do will be talking to them
about masculinity.
95 of it is we got to work withthem as males.
So so we have to like changeour counseling systems.
(15:28):
You know we can't be havingthem sit for 50 minutes Ain't
going to work, they're going toleave counseling.
It's not a fit for their brain,it's a mismatch of their brains
with our system.
And the school is the same sitlisten.
Uh, not not a good match formale brain.
And so the educational systemalso has to help them become
loving, wise and successful, and, uh, so that means changing
(15:51):
classrooms.
What you know what I callsystemic change, which is that
they, they don't need a newcurriculum.
You, you're, you're very right,you know.
They don't need a two milliondollar curriculum to do math in
such and such a way.
Um, what they need is and itcosts very, very little is they
just need systemic change.
They need to see the brain scans, get the training stuff that
(16:11):
they should have had if wedidn't have all of this kind of
sociological argument in college.
They would have seen the brainscans when they went to college
and grad school, and you and Iwould have seen them at grad
school and college, and then wewould be able to set up our
systems to do better for bothgirls and boys, women and men.
So it's a mismatch of the malebrain with our systems, the
(16:34):
systems that are generatedthrough the big three.
That's the mismatch.
It's not really you know, it'snot really much about
masculinity, even though we loveto talk about it Right?
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Well, it's, you know you're saying it, of course it's
.
It's recognize and acknowledgethat there are differences, like
we were even struggling withthat piece to a certain extent.
And in our systems todaythere's this recognition and
acknowledgement that there'sthis difference and that
difference can be.
You know, if you're a teacheror if you're a parent, that you
can be effective inacknowledging that there's a
(17:06):
difference here.
And there's a way I might treatmy son versus my daughter, this
boy in a classroom versus agirl in the classroom.
And you know, now we trip intothe hot and delicate territory
of gender fluidity, right, hotand delicate territory of gender
(17:27):
fluidity, right?
Um, and I, I want to, I want tobring to bear kind of
comparative ideologies here andget your response to it, because
, in truth, you've alreadyresponded to this.
I love it and I've got a quotein the book that I'm that I like
to bring out.
But, um, you know, trying, Iwon't give him too much credit,
but you know, you've got JordanPeterson out there and he is, I
(17:48):
think he doubles down on a lotof the masculinity stuff.
He makes some points that arenot necessarily in error and one
of them that he talks about, hedoes it at length in a variety
of ways.
But you've got a genderfluidity and you've got members
of the LGBTQ community that areidentifying this individual
(18:12):
maybe a boy or a girl.
They're a boy and they feellike they're a girl, and that
individual is trapped in a bodyfrom birth.
They're just trying to emerge.
There's an idea about that asgender identity.
Then there's sex.
What is your gender?
What biological organs do youhave?
What does your brain scan looklike?
(18:33):
And they tend to get mashedtogether.
Jordan will go in and he'll sayyou know, one is a social
construct gender fluidity andgender is a social construct,
whereas sex is not.
Sex is a biological.
You know is something that youhave biologically and that
exists with you.
But then, all of a sudden, theargument starts to get
(18:55):
hyperbolic, it starts to takesides and everything else, and
this is where I would probablypull out your quote, which I
really like, having a personalexperience with transgender
children myself as a childadvocate and this was something
you did in response to somebodywho was arguing with you.
As a child advocate, I'm anadvocate for all children,
(19:17):
including trans, gay, intersexand gender nonconforming.
But human sex exists in 2024,and now 2025, just as much as it
did in the past and as much asit will in the future.
It is an immutable biologicalreality that predates our
present experiments with gender.
The term cisgender is notaccurate to that reality because
(19:38):
of the assumption that sex as aculture is a.
Sex is a culture construct.
Gender is a culture construct,but sex is not, and I think you
see a lot of people havingstrong reactions to that, and I
really love the way that youtalk about it in this book.
How is it that you bring thisto government and education and
(20:00):
everything else?
How do you soften the blow, soto speak, and give it to them in
a way that feels approachablebut also doesn't disregard this
fluidity piece that we knowexists in our community?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
So.
What I advocate, as you know,in this book, more than in any
other previously, is that westop using as much as possible
in the big three so academics,government, media which means
spreading through the wholesociety.
We stop hitting sex and genderagainst each other and we use
(20:32):
the term sex gender.
So, instead of, you know,saying gender, which is what the
term that's used for everything, now, right, we say sex gender
because sex does come first, italways will, right, it has for a
million years, it will foranother million years.
So sex comes first, it's wiredin, and gender is a social
(20:53):
construct, as you've noted, andthe social construct comes
second.
So 30 years ago, just like now,we knew all about the spectrum.
Right posited then was that weshould use the term bridge brain
for what now we call genderfluidity, and that that will
(21:15):
really, really help kids.
At the same time, trans is adifferent category because we
can scan trans brains and youknow, boys at Rescue Plan has
all of this research in there,so people are going to look at
it.
We can scan trans brains and wecan see that up to 30 brain
centers in a trans brain areoperating like the other sex
right.
So they may have a male bodyand genitalia, but their brain
(21:37):
is operating more like, muchmore like a female brain.
So that's an extreme bridgebrain.
So a gender fluid person is abridge brain.
They're not trans, they're abridge brain.
They're somewhere in between,in their own minds they're.
They're kind of in between.
They're still female, they'resomewhere in between in their
own minds they're kind of inbetween.
They're still female, they'restill male.
But there's a wide spectrum ofwhat is female.
Forty four billion people arefemale, right.
(21:58):
So wide spectrum of femalebrain and we can scan it and see
it.
And then wide spectrum of malebrain.
We can scan it and see it.
And gender fluid is kind of inthe middle, not trans, but kind
of in the middle.
So bridge brain, and I actuallyit's.
I think it's much healthier tohelp a gender fluid person and
say, oh, you're, you know, let'slook okay you're not trans
(22:21):
you're saying you're trans butactually you're not.
We can see that you're not trans.
This is a confusion of language.
Um, you're a bridge brain andum, just know that and we accept
you as that.
So you don't have to assert.
You don't have to assert genderand take it over to trans when
you're not trans, which can leadif you're trans, that leads to
(22:43):
a whole other medical situation.
Let's look at you as genderfluid.
Let's look at the socialconstruct that you like, the
gender roles you like.
We'll look at that with you,trans will be here, and intersex
, intersex also.
You know there's we've gotaround, we don't know two, three
million Americans who areintersex.
That's specific.
You have both sets of genitalia, potentially, or your XXYXYY,
(23:07):
so that affects your brain.
So your intersex.
So these are actually differentcategories, but sex always
comes first.
So the movement to makeeverything gender is where we
get in trouble and where we dothings medically that we
shouldn't be doing.
You know, on children,shouldn't be doing those things
on children, they're children.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
They're 12 years old.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
They may have heard from someone that they're trans
now.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
But maybe they lock onto something that somebody
said and they want to do thattoo, right?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, most of them are not trans.
It's social contagion and it'sbad terminology.
They're not trans.
Again, we can scan a transbrain and see trans.
They're gender fluid.
They would be bridge brains.
So what I do, as you know, is Itake a very moderate approach.
I just try to get everyone tolook at all the actual
categories, like LGB, you know,lesbian, gay, bisexual that's
(24:00):
wired in.
We knew that all the way back30 years ago.
So that's wired in.
That isn't that, you know.
That's its own category.
And, of course, we're going togive equal rights to people who
are LGB.
It's wired in.
Just the way heterosexuality iswired in.
Trans is wired in.
Intersex is wired in genderfluidity.
That's much more of a bridgebrain.
And so I'm trying to helpeveryone look at all the
categories, because saying justgender, which is what we do for
(24:23):
everything, is getting us in allsorts of trouble.
So therefore, we are notactually taking care of our boys
, we're not taking care of ourgirls, who are sex right, that's
sex.
We are not taking care of ourmen.
We are not taking care of ourwomen.
That's sex.
We got to make sure to rememberthat sex is the baseline.
So if we mismatch our systemsto males or females anywhere.
(24:47):
We're mismatching to their sex,and then gender social
construct comes later.
We include that.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Well, and it, you know, I think here's a good
metaphor or a good, you know,comparative.
It's like if you've got a,let's say, you've got an
individual, an adult, that istransitioned, and they're they
were female to male and they,they transit, you know, they
were able to get half thesurgery, but they haven't gotten
all the surgery.
If, for some reason, and maybethere was a shortage on
testosterone and so on and soforth, and suddenly their
(25:20):
menstrual cycle returns, you'vegot to go to the doctor.
Well, you probably want to goto a doctor who knows something
about menstrual cycles.
If that's where your issueexists, regardless of how you
identify, regardless of thething that you've tried to make
changes in and do all thosethings.
We're not arguing any of thatwith you.
But if you're going to go getmedical care for this, that
(25:43):
organ is a female organ and youneed to go to somebody who knows
how to work with and treat afemale organ, to somebody who
knows how to work with and treata female organ.
And you know, I think we bringthat, you know, bring this back
to the brain, right All of asudden.
It's like if we look at thebrain and we stop getting in
trouble with this terminologythen we can actually address
(26:03):
people kind of where they live.
And just like we know thatbrain development that you know,
you see, in children there'slots of neurodendritic activity,
a lot of it, and as we growolder you lose neurons, pathways
start to solidify and you'vegot this brain development piece
.
That happens for folks.
So even in a brain that isbridge-brained, it might lean in
(26:31):
one direction or in another andstart to form, if you will,
right.
And because the brain, you knowneuroplasticity, is one of the
one of the great discoveries ofour century.
Ultimately that we, we knowthat the brain can change and it
can do, mark you know,remarkable and wondrous things
in both directions.
The question I have for you isIn the world, you know, outside
of environments, that we, youknow, we hopefully, can control.
(26:55):
We don't always do it well andyour work is helping people do
it well, but you know, a schoolenvironment or a classroom
environment is a controlledenvironment.
The media environment is not acontrolled environment, it's
designed for completelyalternative purposes.
So let's say, for the bridgebrain that lives out in the
(27:15):
world, that is trying to findwe're talking about maybe a
young adult, mid to late teenstrying to find an identity and
we know from attachment theorywe're talking about identity at
these ages being really, reallyimportant and things that can go
(27:36):
awry if they're not done well.
So we've got an individual.
Maybe they're bridge-brainedand they're trying to find an
identity and they're arguingwith this set of people or with
a parent about what they'recalled, what they're called.
You know what gender they'rebeing identified for.
How are you educating parentson navigating that piece?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yeah, yeah, I do it the same way I do in my
counseling practice.
It's a both and of course, Imean you're still your sex and
and you're you're probably abridge brain sex and and you're,
you're probably a bridge brain.
So, trying to get everyone thelanguage, like with clients, I
always I try to figure out, andparents can do this too.
(28:18):
That's part of why I writethese books, so parents can read
them and educators, you know,so that they're you can grab it.
And one of the things parentscan use is you're okay, you know
what.
You're probably a bridge brain.
You're saying you're trans, sonor daughter, you're is.
You're okay, you know what.
You're probably a bridge brain.
You're saying you're trans, sonor daughter.
You're saying you're trans,likely it is.
You're a bridge brain.
If you, if you're presentingwith, you have, if you have,
(28:39):
gender dysphoria, okay, that'sdysphoria, which is depression.
So we can treat that right bylooking at who you are and if
you get out of all of thislanguage stuff that's confusing,
let's just look of all of thislanguage stuff that's confusing,
let's just look at your brain.
It's your brain that'sdepressed, right, it's your
brain, body that's depressed.
Let's go there.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
This is a condition.
Let's treat the condition.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Gender dysphoria.
It's dysphoria, right, so let'stry to help you, and bridge
brain is a way to help you.
So it seems like you're abridge brain and here are the
qualities of a bridge brain, youknow, which are going to be
sort of the same qualities ofsomeone who is saying they're
gender fluid and um, and thensomewhere in there we, we, we as
(29:21):
parents, are going to betalking with the caregivers and
saying does this child, does mychild, have gender dysphoria or
brain sex dysphoria?
So brain sex dysphoria isanother thing that I'm
advocating that we take into ourDSM doesn't exist now.
Everything's gender dysphoria.
So that's just creates a lot ofproblems for parents, for
therapists, for educators, foreveryone.
Everything is gender dysphoria.
(29:42):
Gender is a social construct.
The term is not right for whatis actually going on with our
kids, but if we want to use it,okay, let's differentiate gender
dysphoria from brain sexdysphoria.
A trans person has brain sexdysphoria.
They are depressed becausetheir brain sex does not match
their reproductive biology, andthat is a much more significant
(30:05):
disorder and much more can leadto suicide, let's say, than
gender dysphoria disorder, andmuch more can lead to suicide,
let's say, than gender dysphoria, which is, I'm a bridge brain
and I don't fit and I'm not surewhich way to lean Right.
Yeah, well, and the great thingabout a bridge brain is you
don't have to pick.
You know the parents and theteachers and the therapists and
(30:26):
the psychiatrists.
Everyone is looking and saying,yeah, but you know, you're not
trans, you're a bridge brain.
So now so part of what has tohappen is parents and the
psychiatrist.
Everyone is looking and saying,yeah, but you're not trans,
you're a bridge brain.
So part of what has to happenis parents and the whole system.
Parents have to help schoolsystems and everyone get
re-educated toward what'sactually going on.
And so, rather than everyonegetting educated toward
(30:49):
everything's gender dysphoria,and so when you have gender
dysphoria, you immediately gointo gender affirming care.
We have to, we have to look at,educate the systems, and
parents can advocate for thiseducate the system so that they
can differentiate.
And as the parents and the kidsdifferentiate, the systems
differentiate.
So then the systems willunderstand what care to give
what which child and the systemswill.
(31:09):
Then you know, the parents willadvocate and say I do think my
child has brain sex dysphoria,or I do think my child has
gender dysphoria, but not brainsex dysphoria, and then the
systems will do brain scans andwill look and see, okay, you
have, you actually are trans,you have a brain sex dysphoria
or and in the again, themajority of cases of kids who
(31:32):
present with gender dysphoria,the systems will look at them
and say, okay, you have genderdysphoria, not brain sex
dysphoria, so gender affirmingcare, what we call that, which
is, we're going to start you onbiological interventions
actually not a fit for you,right, because you're not trans,
so not a fit for you.
We're going to do these otherthings and parents, which is
going to be, you know,medication, counseling, you know
(31:53):
, and and parents need to beadvocating for that and this
thing that happened, like in thestate of California, where
parents are not going to be told, so the school doesn't have to
tell the parents if a childcomes in and says, well, I have
gender dysphoria.
Right, ok, that is not a goodmove.
I mean, of course there's goingto be backlash.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
California's making a lot of mistakes these days.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, I mean, you know the parents need to be
involved, helping their kids,and as the parents get educated,
then they won't overreact,they'll understand that this is
a both-and you know.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
They might Some do.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
But you know they might some do, but you know, I
think, well, you know, we'retalking about trying to make
societal change is what we'retalking about.
Right, right, and we got toeducate everyone.
It's just like with gay,lesbian, LGBT or gay.
You know, I mean, 30 years ago,parents were overreacting to
that much more than they are now.
Yeah, some still do Stages ofchange.
Oh, absolutely, we have beenable to educate and say, hey,
this is hardwired, here's how itworks.
You know, please do not beoverreacting to this.
Please support your child, andmost parents are.
There are still some whooverreact, but most parents are.
Well, the same has to happenhere with sex gender.
We got to get everyone educatedin what's actually going on,
(33:09):
because there's so much varietyin the brain.
And to your point aboutneuroplasticity, let me just say
this one thing Sex gender isnot highly plastic, right?
So sex on the brain is nothighly plastic.
So when we talk aboutneuroplasticity, right, as you
know, we're talking about we cantrain the brain to do these
different things and it'llcreate bypasses, right, we'll
(33:32):
have different.
Different synapses will fillinto different damage the brain
pathways right yeah, especiallytrauma.
You know you haveneuroplasticity, you can create
different pathways, but sex ishardwired on the genes in utero,
so we come out with the sex onour brain.
Uh, so I don't want listenersto think, okay, well, because I
(33:54):
say I'm gender fluid, I am nowbecause I say that I'm rewiring
my brain for sex, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
A bridge brain person .
An individual might decide theywant to identify as a certain
gender.
That doesn't necessarily maketheir brain different in the way
that it was in utero.
Is that would that?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
yeah, they still have a bridge brain is also
hardwired in utero.
So right, the spectrum ishardwired in utero and it's just
that as we grow up, we learnwho we are and we see where we
fit on the spectrum and you'llhave some people who are extreme
male on the spectrum.
Uh, the great example would beaction stars and you know, of
(34:33):
course, the individuals are notthat.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
But your classic masculine male yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Well, yeah, if you see an Arnold Schwarzenegger,
what you're seeing, let's say,is you're seeing someone who we
would just use as icon ofextreme male brain, even though
Arnold Schwarzenegger isn'tnecessarily but the Terminator
or whoever he's playing, I'd saythat would be extreme male
brain, which and you're going tosee this develop that brain is
not going to use as many words,it's not going to connect as
many words to feelings as eventhe average male brain is.
(35:01):
It's going to be more spatial,mechanical, more visual, graphic
, more physical, you know, morecerebellum dependent.
You know way out on the one end, and then you know, then you
move, and you move, and you moveand you get closer to the
middle and then you have, ok,I'm a bridge brain.
Ok, well, how do I know I'm abridge brain?
(35:24):
If I'm male, the way I know I'ma bridge brain is that I can
connect more words to feelingsmore quickly.
So my words to feeling rationot only is more rapid, but it
has more depth.
So the more that a male brainmoves toward bridge brain, the
more we measure word to feelingratios, because that's the best
way to know if this is a bridgebrain.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
Word to feeling ratio , because you can still have
very physical athletic bridgebrain males and for females the
same.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
very physical athletic bridge brain males and
for females, the same.
You know the extreme female uhbrain we know is the, is the
brain that uh is, is what wecall ultra feminine if we wanted
to use those language, but it'sthat brain that didn't get
actually a lot of thetestosterone, androgenic
chemical, and so that brain isway out on soft color, high word
(36:12):
to feeling ratio, not spatial.
So spatial is objects movingthrough space, not spatial, way,
way out on the extreme.
And then the more females gettoward the bridge, you know they
would have gotten a little moretestosterone.
And and then there we look atthem now and they look at
themselves and corporate worldloves this stuff because a lot
(36:32):
of these the bridge brainfemales go.
Oh yeah, I'm really spatial, Idon't use as many words, I'm
still female, but I'm more likewhat I think of as a male brain
or what you gurry and justshowed me brain scans of as a
male brain and she's a bridgebrain and she knows it and so,
um, that stuff's hardwired inand the soft wiring is how the
(36:56):
opportunities we give it and howit works in the world but it's
already hardwired, so it's notsex, is not neuroplastic.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Okay, I mean, that's a good distinction.
You know, the funny thing is isthat I, I kind of I ran into
the brain scans and you usethese in your presentation.
Of course, I ran into themprior to that because I've got
family members who aretransgender and the UCSF Child
and Adolescent Gender Center,which is, you know, doing a lot
(37:24):
of research, but a lot ofthere's, but a lot of what
they're doing when they'readvising families who are coming
in about, you know, should we?
And this is a lot, and this isa topic I'd love to hear your
opinion about.
But if you've got a child,that's gender dysphoria or sex
dysphoric, right, and they do abrain scan and like, yeah, well,
(37:47):
your little girl that's, youknow, got all the markers of, of
having the sex of a female doesin fact have what we see in the
averages, a male brain, andthat's why they feel this way
and it's and it's linked to theaffirmations and whether or not,
you know, drugs should be usedbefore the age of 16 and 17, and
(38:09):
all those kinds of things.
Their research is asking thesequestions and applying brain
research to it and saying theseare the things that should
inform any decision, regardlessof the age, etc.
Which is a pretty sophisticatedway to go about it.
You ask the average family hey,you need to go get some brain
scans when you're facing theseissues.
It could be an expensive thingto go get.
(38:30):
It's a fairly sophisticatedthing to kind of engage in until
it becomes normalized andeverything else.
What is your thought about?
You've got an individual thatis gender dysphoric or, excuse
me, sex dysphoric.
They mourn one sex and feellike the other, born one sex and
feel like the other, beingunder the age of, say, 16, 17,
18 or 19 and engaging inhormones and surgeries and so on
(38:57):
and so forth.
You know there's a.
There's a fairly fairly largepopulation of folks that say,
hey, don't touch them untileverything sorts itself out.
18 or 19 years of age.
Then you've got a.
You you've got a smallerpopulation of people that are
that are affirming as soon as,as soon as this individual
starts saying things like this,you want to start affirming
(39:18):
those things.
And that even includes etcetera, et cetera.
You know surgeries and and, andhormones and et cetera.
What are your?
What would you say to that?
Um, both the parties, you know.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yep, absolutely.
Well, in Boys at Rescue Plan, Imean absolutely.
My point of view on it as amedical psychiatric professional
is I make it very clear I wouldfall.
I always am a both and person,I'm always kind of in the middle
, but I would fall.
In terms of child development,I would fall more on the side of
(39:49):
the folks who are saying don'tyou're very careful about what
you do for biologicalinterventions until that brain
and body has had the chance togo through puberty and get to?
You said 16, 17.
I mean, yeah, I think probablyit's going to fall out at 18,
just legally, right, justbecause the way each state's
(40:11):
going to do it.
But yeah, yeah, until they needto get through.
There are just too manynegative side effects.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, interrupting a process before it's complete.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah to overdoing it.
Okay Now, and I say in the book, and we want to remember that
hormone therapy, hormonereplacement, even puberty
blockers, those have alreadybeen used for decades, like, for
instance, for girls who aregetting their periods at seven
(40:45):
or eight, right, we have anumber of our young girls,
especially in the Western world,who are going through puberty
too early and their brainchemistry is off and we have
reasons for that happening.
We think it's coming throughthe chemicals that are coming
into their bodies via food andpollutants and so on.
So already puberty blockershave been used for that
population and they've been usedsuccessfully.
(41:06):
So it's not as if they're evilor something like that.
They're not.
And if they are needed to helpwith a condition that they will
help with, then it's okay.
But using them at the rates andthe levels that are going to
stop puberty beyond 10 or 11,where we want it to stop at
(41:29):
seven or eight.
We want to wait till you're 10or 11 for a girl to start going
through puberty.
Okay, if we say we're going touse the puberty blockers to stop
it completely all the waythrough, then I would argue, no,
that's too severe anintervention.
Yeah, it's going to affect.
It's going to have too manypotential negative effects like
sterility and all these thingsthat we shouldn't be doing to
children.
(41:49):
But that doesn't mean we can'thave gender affirming care.
If we reorient what genderaffirming care is, so if we say
to them more, like you described, where we go, either I can get
brain scans for you, or if wecan't afford them, or they don't
exist yet in our community,which they don't in many
communities then at least we canbe training our professionals
(42:10):
to be doing neuropsych batteriesthat help us to understand is
this person trans, is thisperson gender non-conforming
gender, non-binary, or are theytrans?
We can activate those sorts ofneuropsych batteries in our
profession and parents can askfor them for their child and we
can do them.
And then we can be affirming thechild in saying, okay, you know
(42:32):
, you're a bridge brain, here'show we'll work with you.
You're trans?
Um, we.
But at 12, we can't really knowyet, right, because the brain
really hasn't formed enough forus to absolutely know until you
go through puberty.
Um, because you can go throughpuberty and then some different
things can happen by 17.
Um, like even some trans kidswho say I'm absolutely trans by
(42:54):
17, they say, ooh, I was nottrans, I'm gay, but I couldn't
figure out who.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
I was, I was trans yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
So we have to do a both and um, but I definitely
would be against severebiological interventions for
these young people.
Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve it's all still too
early for the most significantthey weren't already medically
indicated, right exactly yeah,they need to be medically
indicated for something you know, something else than the child
(43:25):
says they're trans.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Well, I mean, it's just not enough it's a pretty
good rule for any kind ofintervention medical
intervention, you know, or forany kind of intervention of that
kind.
It's, you know, the is itmedically necessary?
There's your, there's yourmarker.
That's what you, as a doctor,you're telling you that a
procedure is medically necessarybecause of some condition that
might exist, there's your marker.
If you're doing it to, you know, experiment with the philosophy
(43:49):
this 12 year old has, in theirhead, hit the brakes.
You know what I mean.
So I, you know this.
Uh, it seems to me and you tellme whether or not you find this
statement to be correct that wecould make this whole thing a
lot simpler, that we could makeeverything the problems that
(44:11):
society is experiencing and allthese other pieces we can make
it a lot simpler for schools,for parents, for families, for
the government and et cetera, ifwe just kind of shift our ideas
about it a little bit.
Would you say that that's true,yep?
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yep, I absolutely would, and I'm noticing the time
, so I'm going to have to makethis my last answer, just
because of the time, because Ihave to do another podcast right
after this.
We can educate everybody on Imean, not just on rescuing our
(44:53):
boys, but specifically we have,as you know, one part of the
book is specifically to helppeople with sex, gender, so that
every system can understandwhat is going on, and we will
make it simpler if every systemgets educated in what is sex and
what is gender.
It sounds complicated.
It's like oh, now there areseven categories.
I just wanted gender dysphoria.
But no, actually, if we look ateach category and everyone is
(45:15):
trained to understand who fitsin each category, then we are
going to know what to do foreach child.
Going on right now is way toobroad and it's too political,
you know, whether on one end orthe other, and it's just not
giving parents and kids andpractitioners what they need.
(45:39):
It's a real failure.
Fortunately, I think, in thebig three academics, government
and media where they justdecided we're going to go this
one direction Either there isgender dysphoria or there's not,
and that's going to be it.
That can't work.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
We can dive into that rabbit hole a little bit the
politics and everything else butwe'll have to save that for
another time.
Dr Gurian, I want to thank youso much for joining me today and
I hope that everybody will pickup a copy of Boys a Rescue Plan
so that they can take a lookand be more versed about the
world that we live in, how tosupport our children.
Thank you so much for joiningthe show.
This has been Head InsideMental Health with Todd
(46:18):
Weatherly on WPBM 1037, theVoice of Asheville.
Take care, dr Gurian, it's goodto see you.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
You too, todd, thank you, thanks for all you're doing
.
Yeah, let's do it again.
Outro Music.
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