The Megyn Kelly Show - 20201019_abigail-shrier-on-the-teen-trans-trend-feminism-an

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Oct. 19, 2020 - The Megyn Kelly Show

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Black Rifle Coffee Money 00:03:29
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	Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
	Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly, welcome to the show.
	Today, the book that people don't want you to read or us to talk about.
	But guess what?
	We're going to do it.
	It's called Irreversible Damage, and it is important.
	It's by Abigail Schreier, and it's been causing a lot of consternation.
	The book is about the number of girls who are declaring themselves transgender and how that number is skyrocketing in modern-day America.
	Abigail also touches on some really, really interesting ways of looking at feminism, for lack of a better word, and the messaging we're sending our daughters about what they must be and whether they're the right messages.
	She's gotten all sorts of blowback for writing this thing.
	But as you know, we don't believe in third rails in discussions here in America.
	So without further ado, quick ad, and then we'll get to it.
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	And now Abigail Schreier.
	Abigail Schreier, thank you so much for being here.
	Thank you so much for having me on.
	Okay, so you were a writer for the Wall Street Journal.
	You went to Columbia, Oxford, and Yale Law School.
	So, you know, you're obviously a very smart person.
Gender Dysphoria in Tweens 00:15:17
	And what got you into writing this book, Irreversible Damage, and what preceded it, which was an article in the Wall Street Journal about gender dysphoria?
	That's right.
	I wrote a piece actually just about gender pronoun laws.
	You know, these are the laws that that assigns criminal and civil penalties for failing to use someone's preferred pronoun.
	And that's straightforwardly unconstitutional.
	I just pointed that out that in America, the government can't make people say things.
	And a reader wrote to me and she said, no one else will take this up, but I'm a mom.
	My daughter always had a lot of mental health problems, but she was a very girly girl, had boyfriends in high school.
	And she went off to college and with a group of her friends, they all decided they were trans and she started a course of testosterone.
	And the woman told me this was happening to parents across the country.
	They're watching their teenage girls do this often after social media immersion.
	And she said, no one would write about it.
	Right.
	So I mean, I have to tell you, just from my own perspective, living in New York and having my kids in the private schools here, there has definitely been a shift in the numbers of trans kids and the messaging from the schools on trans kids.
	And if you talk to any parent here, they will acknowledge that.
	And I know that you notice this phenomenon.
	The question is whether, you know, what causes it.
	But even in one of the schools here, there was like sort of a cluster of girls in one of the 10th grades at one of these private schools that sort of all came out as trans.
	Right at the same time.
	And that looks unlike what we've traditionally seen transgender teens look like.
	Like they usually had a background where from age two or four, two to four, they knew it, right?
	That's exactly right.
	In fact, I interviewed a lot of transgender adults for the book, and their experience doesn't look anything like what we're seeing.
	I get calls from parents from the toniest girls schools in Manhattan, you know, to the public schools across the country.
	And they will tell me, you know, 30 percent, 20 percent of their daughter's seventh grade class is now decided they were transgender.
	That those numbers don't make any sense.
	And what's also crazy about them is that they're coming out with their friends within a very short period of time, often encouraged by social media gurus.
	So this this is not what traditional gender dysphoria, the severe discomfort in one's biological.
	sex, looks like.
	The problem is that we're what they are pushing for hormones and surgeries and they're getting them right away, But what it looks like is pure contagion.
	This looks like anorexia.
	It looks like cutting.
	It looks like bulimia.
	Girls in a lot of pain sharing and spreading their pain.
	And we'll get to the controversy over those conclusions in a bit because Abigail, I mean, it's brave of her to come on.
	It was brave of her to write this book.
	She's received so much backlash from the activists within the trans community who don't speak for all trans people at all.
	I mean, I know a lot of trans people.
	I do.
	And They don't subscribe to all the pushes that we get from activist trans people on how you can't talk about anything, right?
	Otherwise, you're a bigot, you're a transphobe.
	Well, bull, bull.
	I'm not a transphobe at all.
	I've got transgender people in my family and trans friends.
	And this isn't about adults who are transgender.
	This is about what's happening to not just teenage girls, but tweens.
	You know, we're talking as young as 11, 12, who identify as girls their whole life, they're biological girls, identify as girls their whole lives.
	And then suddenly decide at age 11, they come out saying, nope, I'm a boy.
	And before you know it, they're getting hormones.
	They're getting dangerous, potentially dangerous hormones that, as Abigail points out in the title, could cause irreversible damage, just to set it up for our audience.
	Okay, so you start doing your research.
	You decide you're going to write this book.
	And as I read it, you spoke with, I'm going to give you the folks of the list, physicians, endocrinologists, psychiatrists, world-renowned psychologists specializing in gender dysphoria.
	Psychotherapists, transgender adolescents, transgender adults, de sisters, people who were going down that path and then decided they weren't trans, and de transitioners, people who actually started to, I guess, physically transition, right?
	And then decided to reverse it.
	Yeah, that's right.
	Okay.
	And what was the number one takeaway that you came to in doing your research?
	Well, you know, it's based on the public health researcher Lisa Littman's work at Brown University.
	She was the first one to really do a scientific study of this.
	And what she noticed was that, you know, this looked a lot like other peer contagions.
	We know that teenage girls who are in pain, and these girls are in a lot of pain, they're in a lot of, they have anxiety and depression in numbers we've never before seen.
	We know that girls look to the culture to help them understand their pain.
	So, in prior eras, they might have said, Oh, I'm so fat.
	If I just lost more weight, I'd be happy.
	I know I would.
	And today they're looking at their bodies and saying, I feel so unfeminine.
	If I only shed this female body, I know I would be happy.
	And it's such a difference from the way we grew up when that was just called puberty.
	It's normal to feel uncomfortable in your body, to feel gross, to feel unattractive, to wonder if you belong, to wonder if there's another way that you could belong better.
	But when we were growing up, This was not, you know, for lack of a better term, an option.
	It wasn't a socially accepted option.
	And now it's becoming like an option.
	It's not a thing you were born with or weren't born with.
	It's like maybe you could just switch genders and things would get better for you.
	That's right.
	And it's not, you know, in prior eras, if someone came out, you know, decided they were anorexic or decided their problem was they were so fat, their doctors didn't agree with that and affirm it.
	Their teachers didn't celebrate it at school.
	They didn't go to online mentors who encouraged it.
	But today, and they didn't go to doctors who supplied all the medications for weight loss.
	But today, that's what we're seeing with gender dysphoria.
	These girls who are lonely, who are in a lot of pain, they come out and it's a nonstop fast track to transition.
	And they get so much celebration that they're afraid to let go of it.
	It's like in an attempt, in a good faith, laudable attempt to reduce the bullying that trans kids, trans people were genuinely facing, we, like we often do, overcorrected.
	To the point now where any gender confusion is treated as a confirmed case of gender dysphoria.
	I mean, the rule basically is if you think you're trans, you are, period.
	And if you try to explore it, you're a bigot.
	That's exactly right.
	And that goes for the parents too.
	Parents call me, these are overwhelmingly liberal parents.
	These are politically progressives.
	They've always considered themselves allies.
	But when their 12 year old daughter comes out to them as trans because she heard it in a school assembly and thinks she heard from a school assembly where A kid came out as trans and now she thinks she might be.
	The parents say, Okay, honey, well, hold on.
	You know, I don't think we should start any medical transitions.
	Let's wait and see.
	The moment the parents do that, they're considered transphobes.
	And in some cases, they're worried about losing custody.
	And what's happening is the girls and the school communities join together to work against those parents.
	So if the parent says, Hold on, babe, you know, we've had a rough time in our family the past couple of years, or you got bullied, you feel socially awkward.
	It's possible this isn't gender dysphoria.
	It's possible this is you looking to find a better social landing place, one that's actually very accepted now and actually not only accepted but celebrated in a lot of circles.
	It's possible that's what's happening.
	So why don't we explore that?
	Then the parents are labeled transphobic by the community, by the daughter oftentimes, by the online influencers they're listening to.
	And can you just tell the audience what the schools are now doing with kids in this mindset?
	So in California, New York, I've also heard New Jersey, the school policy. is to keep it from parents if the children come out as trans.
	So remember that the schools are, first of all, encouraging the idea of self-discovery of gender ideology.
	They introduce the idea that only a child knows their own gender.
	So they tell this to the kids and they encourage gender exploration.
	Sometimes it's part of the curriculum.
	And then when the child chooses a new gender, they actively hide it from the parents.
	There's actually a form that they fill out.
	And the line that I've heard from teachers is, home is not a safe place for trans kids.
	That happened to people we know through friends at a New York City private school where their child came home and one day told the parents that I think it was a boy transitioning to girl, identified as a boy at birth.
	And I'm short forming the language.
	I realize that to not be offensive to certain trans activists and transgender people, you have to say it with 50 words to get to the one.
	So, with respect, what I mean is identified as a boy at birth who identified more as a girl.
	So, we wanted to transition to being a girl.
	He comes home, he tells his parents, and the parents are like, okay, this is something we're going to have to wrestle with.
	We're going to have to think about this.
	They go to the school to say, look, I want to let you know he's going through a thing.
	He thinks he's identifying as a girl, so he may be at some point wanting to use a new name.
	The school's like, oh, we know all about it.
	He's been doing it for a year.
	They're like, what?
	Why don't you tell us?
	It is the school policy not to tell.
	And your book points out it may actually be the school policy to affirmatively work to conceal.
	That's right.
	I talked to one woman whose daughter I call Maddie in the book.
	Her seventh grader came home and decided she was trans based on a school assembly.
	And the girl had not only been identifying as a boy for a year, but she was actually able to go on an overnight trip and stay with the boys.
	Her mother had no idea she'd been using this male identity.
	It had been kept from her.
	And interestingly, of course, being called a boy's name for a year and using the boy's facilities tends to solidify in your mind the idea that you really aren't a girl.
	You really are a boy.
	So, needless to say, the girl was very confused.
	What do the schools say about parental rights to know what's happening with their children, their minor children?
	You know, the parental rights are so diminished today, it's unbelievable.
	What they will say, they have a real heroes complex at the school, and the idea is that they are saving the school, they're saving the children from bully parents, parents who are not LGBTQ accepting.
	And the irony is, of course, not only are these parents incredibly LGBTQ accepting and affirming, And certainly in their politics, and even with their daughters, when they come home and say they're pansexual, they embrace their daughters.
	Not only that, but it's actually been the opposite has been occurring.
	Most of the parents I talk to are desperate to stay in touch with their daughters, but actually, once their daughters come out as trans, they very often, the next move is to cut off the parents.
	Can you just define pansexual?
	Oh, sorry.
	Pansexual is the new bi.
	It means you are attracted to both.
	We don't say bi.
	They don't say bi anymore because that means there are only two genders.
	And in gender ideology, believers think there are many, many.
	And just so the audience gets it, because the terms are overwhelming, there's so many now.
	There's like literally a list of you could be 200 different genders or 200 different sexualities.
	Just don't confuse sexuality for gender issues.
	They are potentially two different things.
	They might cross over, and today's day and age makes it extra confusing.
	But gender is about whether you're a man or a woman.
	And sexuality is about who you are attracted to.
	And they get confused.
	They're totally different.
	Yeah, they're totally different.
	And I just want to say, My book is about irreversible damage.
	It's about the harm that kids do when they start on this gender journey.
	This is not about LGBTQ experimentation, which comes with no irreversible harm.
	Right.
	And what you point out in the book is that typically this gender dysphoria, this wondering, this confusion about whether you've been born into, quote, the right body, the right biological sex body, in 70% of cases, it resolves on its own.
	Historically, it has.
	Yeah.
	When a kid went through this, we have a hundred year history of what they call gender dysphoria, severe discomfort in one's biological sex.
	So we know what it looks like.
	And historically, over 70% of the kids just naturally outgrew it.
	Today, of course, they're being affirmed all over the place at school, by psychologists, by doctors, by their friends, by their online gurus.
	So today, we're likely to see much less desistance and much less outgrowing this.
	And just to put a point on the end of the school discussion.
	I know that like the LA schools are saying parental rights end at the school door.
	That's it.
	You know, you drop them off here, they're ours, and we really have no obligation to inform you what they're being called, how they're identifying, or even if they're leaving school grounds during the school day to go get gender hormones.
	If your daughter wants to start taking testosterone, she can leave school grounds like during school hours, right?
	And go get it without them telling the parents.
	Yeah, that was the policy adopted by the California Teachers Association.
	So they approved that policy.
	You know, what was interesting about when I interviewed these teachers is what you just said was right.
	They insist that school has to be a safe space for trans kids.
	They keep saying that over and over.
	The thing is, in Southern California, who are they talking about?
	Where are the bullies?
	Kids are really used to LGBTQ kids.
	So where are the bullies?
	Well, when I did the investigation, I started realizing that the bullies they're talking about are the parents.
	Well, the LA schools have been very open about how they see their role.
	As pushing social justice.
	And I can tell you here in New York, 100% the same.
	I mean, we've experienced that firsthand, that they fully willingly say now they're pushing a social justice agenda and they're getting their materials from some far left groups that is now being filtered down to our kids, Abigail.
	That's right.
	The materials are completely supplied by the activists and the teachers are trained by activists.
	So the materials are really, really radical.
	And here in California, they wanted to do the materials they introduced not only.
	You know, teach masturbation, but they encourage things like all kinds of anal sex is discussed throughout their curriculum.
Radical Materials and Regret 00:11:33
	But the most radical of all, in some sense, is when they try to teach kindergartners that just because you were assigned male at birth doesn't mean you're really a boy.
	What your true gender is, is something only you can know.
	They introduced them, we experienced this too at one of our schools.
	They introduced the littles, the young kids in our school, it was third grade, it wasn't kindergarten, but I know it's happening in LA in kindergarten to this quote.
	Gender bred person, where it's this little, I mean, this happened at our school where they show the kids this little gender bred person and talk about how your gender is determined in your head.
	That's because they believe that gender is a social construct.
	And in our school, they were teaching our eight year olds that.
	And the boys were confused.
	They were confused.
	The parents were not kept in a loop on what exactly was being shared.
	And ultimately, the school apologized because they went so far out on a limb with a three week experimental program on this.
	That the parents were like, even for New York City parents, this is a bit much.
	Now, at our school, you could opt out if you wanted to, and parents really weren't.
	Communicated to in an effective way at our school, which is why they apologize.
	But you can't always opt out of this.
	In California, you cannot opt out.
	And it was done deliberately that way.
	The way they did it was they put this not in the sexual orientation, sorry, the sexual education curriculum, which you can opt out of.
	They put it in the anti bullying curriculum, which no one can opt out of.
	So that's how they sort of hid it in the curriculum.
	It's mandatory and it begins in kindergarten.
	Wow.
	And like, think of how confusing that is for a for a kid who doesn't, they don't, they haven't even thought about it unless, unless they are, because, you know, as you point out, transgender issues have normally traditionally struck between the ages of two and four and the kid knows.
	And if you talk to transgender adults, most of them will tell you, oh, I knew, I knew my entire life when I was a little boy.
	I knew I was in the wrong body.
	I was wearing the dresses.
	I wanted to do the ballet.
	I didn't want to do the football.
	They have that story.
	And, and so, but that's a, that's been a very tiny percentage of people.
	Historically, 0.01% of the population, but now they're talking to every kid like they might have it, like this is something they should consider.
	That's right.
	I mean, it was even smaller for women.
	For women, it was one in 30,000.
	So it was 0.003%.
	So a number that rounds to zero.
	It's a very small number.
	And today, you're seeing such high numbers.
	I get calls from parents, as I said before, 15% of their daughters in class, seventh grade class is coming out.
	We know that 2% of American high school students are now saying they're trans.
	That's hundreds of over 300,000 kids.
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	And now back to Abigail.
	The book says that in the United States, the prevalence of transgender or gender dysphoria in adolescents is up 1,000%.
	In Great Britain, it's up 4,000%.
	And this Lisa Lippman, L-I-T-T-M-A-N, she was an OB-G-Y-N turned public health researcher and did this study at Brown that you mentioned, trying to figure out why, what has caused the numbers to go up so steeply.
	And she came up with this term, rapid onset gender dysphoria, which is driving the trans activists nuts.
	They say it's not a real thing.
	This isn't a medical body doing this research.
	But, and they say you can't trust this woman's study because what she did was she went to parents to talk about it.
	And their analogy was that's like going to the Klan to ask if racism is bad.
	That if you ask parents, they're going to say, It's all bad, and that our kids have been forced into this, and that they didn't talk to the right people.
	Yeah, that's a very silly thing to say, because, of course, with mental health problems of adolescents and minor children, you always survey the parents.
	That's the only way to get an accurate mental health diagnosis for children.
	And these girls end up with terrible harm.
	Once they start down this course, I think of one woman, Desmond, who came out in high school as trans.
	She decided, She must be a boy.
	She was celebrated everywhere.
	She was very, very lonely.
	She was celebrating the high school.
	Everyone encouraged her.
	And she started a course of testosterone and it caused uterine cramping, severe uterine cramping, necessitating a hysterectomy because it causes uterine atrophy.
	And she woke up at 21 realizing this whole thing had been a terrible mistake.
	Oh, I mean, that's the thing.
	And I don't really care if people say we're not allowed to talk about it.
	We have to talk about it for the sake of our daughters who are getting swept up in something that may not for them be real.
	And for others, it may be.
	So there's nothing wrong with talking about it.
	That doesn't mean you go and shame girls who are maybe having this experience.
	I mean, there is a way of being supportive, but exploratory and open and honest.
	And the desire to pretend that's not a possible lane by these activists ignores a parent's love for one's child.
	I mean, there's a reason they let the parent make decisions for the child legally.
	It's because the law, even the law, presumes a loving, caring relationship from parent to parent.
	to child?
	I mean, parents are so denigrated, but when these girls wake up with regret, and a lot of them do, we're already seeing very high numbers of regret because these young girls didn't have real gender dysphoria to begin with.
	So they're not helped by transition.
	They really have a lot of mental health issues.
	They're not helped by transition.
	When they wake up with regret, who do you think is there for them?
	It's not the therapist who celebrated it.
	It's not the doctor who pushed it.
	It's the parents who are asking them to please just wait.
	And it's not, from what I gather in your book, it's not parents who are saying, no, never.
	or anti-trans.
	I mean, I'm sure there's some percentage that feel that way.
	But it's oftentimes parents who say, very open-minded to trans gender and gender dysphoria issues will completely love you if that is you.
	But let's make sure that's you before we start doing anything rash.
	That's right.
	It's parents who have raised these girls and they know them their whole life and they say, honey, you were always very girly.
	You're just going through a tough time in adolescence.
	There's no reason to rush to remove your breasts.
	That's not an unreasonable comment to make.
	Well, and it's like, so they call that top surgery, your book points out.
	And, you know, the thought is, oh, I can always have the breast put back if this doesn't work out, which completely underestimates the radical nature of breast surgery and how that would go if they removed all your breast tissue and then just tried to give you implants back.
	And a lot of people who have undergone this for medical reasons can testify to the difficulties that can pose.
	But it's more than that.
	Can you just talk about the drug sequence that some of these girls are choosing and what it does?
	Sure.
	So I think about Helen, a young woman I interviewed who was convinced she went through a really hard time in adolescence.
	She didn't have friends.
	And then she came out with her friends as trans.
	And she really decided, and she was in a terribly rebellious period, really not getting along with mom and dad.
	And she decided when she hit 18, she was going to go to get testosterone.
	So you don't even need a therapist note.
	She drove to a clinic when she turned 18, got a course of testosterone, and started right away.
	And within a few months, permanent changes start occurring, like the deepening of your voice.
	Changes to private anatomy, it raises the risk of cardiovascular disease, and then the big one is infertility.
	Right.
	So the way infertility happens is if your daughter comes to you and says, I think I might be trans, and you want to postpone puberty, you want to give her the time to figure that out before puberty begins.
	Some parents are doing this with girls who are that young.
	They haven't even started puberty yet.
	And the danger comes when you go, what, directly from those puberty postponing drugs to cross gender hormones like testosterone?
	Yes.
	So the infertility can happen a few ways.
	If you go from Puberty blockers, which stop female puberty.
	It stops your puberty, which is what they do with younger girls who are just in the first stages of puberty, and then go to cross sex hormones because you can't stay on the puberty blockers forever.
	So, usually about two years you're on them.
	Then you go to cross sex hormones.
	At that point, you will never be fertile.
	And that's pretty certain.
	But girls who go straight to testosterone, this very often causes uterine atrophy and vaginal atrophy.
	And what that means is it can cause a very high chance of endometrial cancer.
	So, very often doctors will recommend a prophylactic hysterectomy because of testosterone use for a few years.
	I mean, that is just, that's scary.
	I mean, that's downright scary.
	As supportive as you want to be of your child's issues, if this is one of them, for God's sake, you need to make sure.
	You need to make sure this is going to have serious, serious health outcomes as a result.
	And it's not just those, which are the most serious, but if you start taking testosterone and then decide, You were wrong.
	You were just going through a phase and you are a girl.
	You're not a boy.
	What, I mean, can you get rid of all the testosterone side effects easily?
	No, some of them are permanent.
	So your voice never goes back.
	Your features may change.
	You'll probably, you know, like some women I talk to have a five o'clock shadow for the rest of your life.
	I mean, it really, testosterone obviously changes the way you look.
	It gives you facial hair, it gives you a more rounded nose, more rounded face in a lot of cases.
	And it's like, God, you got to make sure.
	And one of the problems your book points out.
	This is probably the most scary part of it is that the medical standard now, the medical standard is to affirm, affirm, affirm, affirm.
Permanent Testosterone Side Effects 00:15:23
	How can that be?
	How can the psychiatrists and the psychologists not be in a place of probing possible underlying issues that may be confusing a girl?
	That's right.
	It's the only area of medicine in which the doctors are told your job is to agree with the patient's self-diagnosis.
	And this is what's known as affirmative care.
	And what it means is that this area of medicine has become so politicized that the doctor just has to agree and rubber stamp whatever the patient says.
	This is crazy.
	I actually asked my own therapist about this, and he said 100% right that that is what they're told.
	And even when they do rounds in the hospital, if they go up to a patient and they say, Patient is a 45 year old woman, presents, he'll get interrupted by his residents saying, How do you know it's a woman?
	You know, and he's, he's looking at the patient in the bed, but now we're not even allowed to presume gender or we're bigoted.
	And so the medical professionals from the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association, all these, the Endocrine Society, on and on it goes, they all say, you need to affirm.
	So if a kid just comes in and says, I think I might be, they're not supposed to say, well, why?
	Maybe it's something else.
	That's right.
	We have conversion therapy laws in 19 states, which actually say that a therapist is not allowed to so called convert someone out of their gender identity.
	Which means that a therapist who says to a kid, Listen, you have a lot of mental health things going on.
	Let's not jump to this, is really at risk of losing their license.
	How is that converting as opposed to working on diagnosing?
	You know, these conversion therapy laws are actually a really Trojan horse because they say they are to ban gay conversion therapy, which traditionally involved some very grisly, very ugly practices, but they slipped gender identity language in.
	So you can't even.
	Talk a kid, you know, help a kid feel comfortable in their own body, which was always how this was treated historically.
	So, parents who are looking for help with this, parents whose child comes to them and says, I'm having this issue, and those are the lucky ones because a lot of the times the teens say nothing to the parents, they just live on YouTube, and we'll get to that.
	But the parents, I mean, the answer is not necessarily go to a therapist.
	That's right.
	I mean, you know, the answer is not go to a therapist because a lot of the therapists, you know, I talk to parents whose Therapists were pushing transition on the kid, and the parents had no idea.
	And in fact, they had promised the parents they wouldn't do that.
	And yet they had been affirming the child for a year, calling them, Yes, Jimmy, no, you're definitely a boy, going along, encouraging this in the child's mind.
	Oh, my.
	I mean, so these parents are in a position where they've got the school community working against them.
	They've got the therapists who they bring in in good faith working against them.
	And then they've got their daughters who don't see them as a safe, Space because they either presume the parents won't support or, in fact, have received pushback from the parents that make them believe they won't be supported.
	So the parents are strong armed out of all of this while potential drugs are being sought, potential surgical choices are being investigated.
	And you point out in the book, Irreversible Damage, one of the main culprits in all this, one of the places they're going that they do get information from is YouTube and other online sites.
	That's right.
	Teens today are spending a huge amount of time online.
	And what they're finding there is these YouTube influencers and other social media influencers who are a little older than they are.
	They're in their 20s, they're trans, and they promise that if you just start a course of testosterone, you're going to feel great.
	And unfortunately, these videos queue up automatically.
	You don't even have to go looking for them.
	And they're very hypnotic, they're very well produced.
	I was able to interview some influencers.
	And unfortunately, depending on the young person's age, at 15 in Oregon, they're able to go out and get these drugs from the themselves without even parental approval.
	And you know how it is.
	Like you, I mean, I don't know.
	Would parental controls block these websites?
	I can see how it blocks pornography, but would it block these?
	It's a good question.
	I don't think so, but I don't know.
	I mean, I think that, you know, I'm sure you can get parental controls that are sophisticated enough, but people, you know, I talked to parents whose daughters went on to art sharing websites.
	So the, the, ostensibly the site wasn't even about, Gender at all, except that lots of transgender activists tended to congregate there and would redirect people towards other trans influencers.
	I mean, and even parental, I mean, by the time your kid is a teenager, parental controls, I think, are largely done.
	I mean, they're going to find a way to get access to unfiltered internet.
	Doug and I talk about this all the time because we have three kids and it's like, that's coming.
	Right now, they're 11, 9, and 7, but we know that's coming.
	Question I think for a lot of parents is Do you ban the kid from having any access to that stuff or do you allow it and just try to be as involved as possible in talking to them about the dangers, the dangerous corners of the internet?
	How damaging it could be.
	And I think it depends on the age.
	I'm not going to sit back and let my 11 year old search unfiltered and see pornography.
	I think it could be genuinely damaging to him.
	But I know from the studies, we attended this seminar at one of our schools last year, that it was something like just over the majority of 12 year old boys have seen pornography on the internet.
	12.
	So it's a losing battle for parents.
	It is a losing battle, especially because the schools direct them to the internet all the time.
	Internet is a very, very bad place.
	There's no question for young teens, but especially teenage girls, because they're constantly comparing their bodies to these images.
	They're constantly looking to see how many more friends other girls have, and they're not spending time with each other.
	So they're not getting emotionally filled up, and they're going on these sites that are so emotionally draining and make them feel so bad.
	And a lot of other psychologists have connected this to the spiking rates of anxiety and depression among teenage girls.
	Right.
	Like that's.
	That's where it starts.
	You talk about this in the book.
	Where does it start?
	Like, who is at risk?
	And I guess the answer is potentially anyone.
	But you start from the position that there is greater loneliness being reported by these teens, teens today, than any other generation on record.
	Why?
	That's right.
	Because they're spending a lot less time.
	Gene Twangy is the psychologist who did the research on this.
	They're spending a lot less time with each other in person and a lot more time online, up to an hour less in person per day.
	Than previous generations.
	And even when they're together, they're not spending time together, they're on their phones.
	So they don't get filled up.
	And at the same time, they're fighting this losing competition for status on social media.
	They never feel good enough.
	The images they're comparing themselves to are so perfect.
	It was hard enough when we were girls and we just had the magazines with all these women who looked, quote, perfect.
	Now it's out of control.
	Now it's next level.
	And not to blame it on the Kardashians because you either seek that kind of Product out or teach your daughter that that's a good thing to look at, or you don't.
	But that's what our culture is the selfie culture, the filters, the false presentation of surgically altered bodies as though that's easily attainable and anything else is less than.
	That's what these kids have to grow up in now.
	You would feel anxious and depressed as they do.
	That's right.
	I mean, girlhood, when you go through puberty as a young woman, it's a hard time for every girl.
	And that's what they don't know.
	And it used to be something that you went through and And you listen to the music and you talk to your girlfriends or you wrote in your diary, and it was a private experience of, you know, difficulty.
	And today they have no private experience, it's entirely public and they never get to digest it.
	Everything is online and everything that they're comparing themselves to makes them feel worse.
	I like these influencers online.
	Some of these young women are starting to do this where they'll show themselves pre filter and they'll show the magic of the filter, how, you know, they're, Their normal female bellies stick out and have some fat on them.
	And if you stick them out or if you're feeling bloated, they look like you're five months pregnant.
	But if you suck them in and you're having a good day, they can look like washboard abs.
	That stuff is healthy, you know, but there's 3% of that and 97% of the other.
	But so that leads me to the question of who?
	Who is at risk for this?
	What is there a, you know, are there general characteristics of the family, of the girls that would lead parents out there to say, okay, I, we have a red flag on our sort of typical family.
	And what do I look for?
	So, by and large, these are middle class and upper middle class white girls.
	Now, not all, but the bulk of them are.
	These are very precocious, these are very bright girls, and they've been very tended by mom.
	So, they really struggle socially.
	They don't make friends easily.
	They're very bright and they're in their heads a lot and they're online a lot.
	Now, what do you mean coddled by mom?
	Because, I mean, in today's day and age, everything's all about being the helicopter.
	Right.
	I mean, that's part of the problem is that girls go off to school, you know, to university at 18, but they really emotionally are like a 16 year old or a 14 year old because they've never been allowed to take any risks.
	You know, mom made sure that they never ever smoked a cigarette.
	Mom made sure that they were never hanging out with a bad girl in person.
	Mom made sure mom, even today, more and more kids are bringing mom along on their, you know, hangouts.
	The mom comes with them.
	Sometimes they can't drive.
	So they are never able to go through the maturing process that happens when you're away from mom.
	And so then they turn to these gurus online for advice.
	And unfortunately, the ones online are really, really bad influences.
	So when you say, you know, you say that some of these girls lack rebellion.
	This is an act of rebellion?
	So, what is the point?
	Like a little steam out of the tea kettle here and there will help avoid the huge eruption?
	You know, it is in some sense a form of rebellion, but really what it is is just saying, Mom, I need space to be me.
	And moms today won't give you the space very often.
	What they will do is they'll say, I'll come to the rock concert with you.
	I'll drive your friends.
	Do you want a near piercing?
	I'll get one with you.
	And the problem is the young girl never has a chance to individuate and be her own person.
	She doesn't really rebel in the traditional way.
	She has no space to.
	And so finally she says, You know what, mom?
	I'm nothing like you.
	I'm a boy.
	And I know you say that one of the other flags is that for a lot of these girls, their bodies are a mystery to them.
	They may never have been kissed, they may never have touched themselves sexually.
	So, how are we supposed to cross that bridge with our kids?
	Because I think, as open minded as a lot of us are, it's not like I want to sit down with my daughter and say, Why don't you give this a try?
	It's going to feel great.
	That may be pushing it a little far.
	So, what are we supposed to do?
	Well, one thing is, kids should be spending more time in person with each other.
	I think, Mom, you know, this generation of parents, and I include myself in this, is for various reasons, you know, watching our society in many ways fall apart.
	We've become so helicoptering, we're afraid to let them out of our sight.
	And the problem is, is that a certain amount of teenage experimentation helps you grow up.
	And even if it's not physical, even just, you know, talking through your feelings, even just a kiss, these are normal parts of adolescence that moms are stopping from occurring today.
	So, these girls don't know themselves at all, and they don't know themselves sexually at all.
	And it's like, I mean, I will say in my own case, I remember growing up, my mom and my dad taught me values, and we went to church on Sundays.
	We're Catholic, and you get a certain set of ethics imprinted on you at a young age.
	And then when I got to be a teenager, I mean, my parents are totally hands off.
	It was, you know, the 80s.
	So they were basically like, take care.
	See you when you're leaving the house for college.
	But I, and I rebelled a little.
	I did some naughty things, but they were never too awful because of the imprint.
	But my parents certainly weren't running around after me like, you can't be in the basement with that boy, or all doors have to be open at all times, or no walks on the beach with, you know, they kind of let me do my thing.
	And it was fine because of the imprint.
	So I think, I mean, is that where we go?
	Like, make the imprint good and then trust a little.
	And if they fall or they make a misstep or they do something stupid, you're there to help.
	But the goal is not to prevent those moments.
	That's exactly right.
	What parents are doing today is the opposite of what your parents did.
	So instead of they not giving the values, they're not supplying the values.
	What the moms are basically thinking is, it's okay, I'll just always be there.
	And so they do, they micromanage every situation they're trying to do.
	Children are in, and the kids actually don't have much of a guide for how they should behave.
	And then they look online to how they should behave, and the mentors there are really not the people you want influencing your children.
	No, God, no.
	I mean, it truly is.
	It falls in line with what we've been talking about on this show for two weeks now, which is safe spaces are not safe.
	They have exactly the opposite effect of the one that's intended because the dangers will come for them.
	They will.
	And the goal as the parent is not to prevent any of this harm from ever happening, it's to give your child the tools.
	To deal with it, especially while they're under your roof and you can discuss it and you can be there to help them pick up the pieces.
	But why would you want the first major catastrophe or problem to come to your kid when they're no longer living with you and you can't help them?
	That's right.
	And parents are so alarmist about things that are genuinely concerning, like, you know, date rape and whatnot, sexual assault, but they are so alarmist about them that even normal experimentation they've completely prevented from ever occurring.
	So these kids are so immature and they don't know how to govern themselves and they don't know who they are.
	And yet they go into school and they get these explicit lessons in explicit sex acts.
	And I'm sure it's very jarring for some of them.
	And then they're told there's something wrong with them if they're not totally accepting of all of it and aren't snapping whenever anybody gets up to talk about how they were a girl yesterday but are a boy today.
	It's so confusing for these kids.
	I know you talk in the book about how the messages that they're getting from.
	Instagram, Reddit, that website you talked about with the art, that the messages coming back to them from those are basically, they celebrate.
	They celebrate testosterone.
Devastating Detransition Stories 00:13:53
	It's amazing.
	Your parents, they're awful if they don't completely support your new trans identity.
	And also, if you don't go with this, if you're not supported in your new transgender identity, you're going to kill yourself.
	And this is where we really get to it because that warning to kids and to parents is The five alarm fire.
	That's right.
	And, you know, look, all concerns about suicide have to be taken seriously.
	But today we're so hysterical about it that it's always in a kid's head.
	Suicide, I know about this.
	If I'm trans, I'm at risk for suicide.
	So, first of all, we're suggesting it to the kid.
	The actual truth about suicide is not what's being presented.
	So, we have no proof that gender dysphoria causes suicidality.
	And we have no proof that transition is a cure.
	Okay.
	All we know is that these same kids who come out.
	Tend to have high rates of suicidal ideation and depression.
	But we don't know that transition is either gender dysphoria is either the cause or transition is the cure.
	Because that's the thing that makes most of us pay attention, right?
	I mean, like that's the absolute last thing any parent wants to hear is that their kid is at risk for suicide.
	And I mean, this is what I think leads most of us to say the first reaction ought to be acceptance and love, acceptance and love, acceptance and love.
	You know, they say the suicide rates for transgender.
	And can you just define non binary?
	Because that's the, it said transgender and non binary kids, they say, comprise 54% of the teenagers who attempted suicide last year.
	54% of the kids who attempted suicide are trans or non binary.
	So can you just define that term?
	Sure.
	Non binary people who say they're neither male nor female, they're somewhere in between.
	And girls who come up with this, they come up with this identity online.
	Remember, these girls who don't know their own bodies, they haven't done any experimentation, you know, physical, sexual.
	And they choose one of these exotic online identities.
	They get a lot of congratulations.
	And on the basis of that, they can go right to a surgeon at age 16 and say, This is me.
	I'm ready to have my breast removed without even a therapist's note.
	They can get that.
	So, how do you?
	I mean, that's just insanity.
	That's just insanity.
	The total removal from the parents and major life and physical decisions is just wrong under any circumstances.
	But the suicide rate I mean, I think to the parents out there saying, I don't give a damn.
	And I know there was a response to your article in the Wall Street Journal that kicked this off by somebody who was a trans parent themselves who talked about their.
	trans child coming out to them.
	And I think it was a boy to girl transition.
	And there was a sweet line at the end that said something like that.
	I cried at the thought of, even I as a trans person cried at the thought of my child going through this because it's not easy.
	But I cried at the thought of saying goodbye to my son as they drove off.
	And what I realized was I was actually saying hello to my daughter.
	And I thought, oh my God, that's a beautiful way of putting it.
	And I think most parents love their kids so much, even though most would not want this for them.
	They'll do what it takes to keep their kid well.
	So, to those parents who are worried about the suicide rate and those 54% numbers, what do you say?
	Well, first of all, it's highly coercive.
	This is the only area of medicine where risk of suicide means you have to agree with the patient's self diagnosis and do everything she says she needs.
	That's usually been the role of a doctor to assess, but doctors aren't giving independent assessment.
	So, parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
	They are being manipulated, and very often the risk is not accurate.
	There's no reason to believe that agreeing with the patient and affirming them or letting them go through transition will alleviate suicidality.
	And did you find any evidence that transitioning, either, you know, we can put physically to the side, I guess, but just going by a male pronoun, being called a male name, and starting the process of looking more like a boy?
	What are sort of the stats on the joy that causes or the anxiety, stress, and depression that causes?
	So, there are no good studies that show that it alleviates suicidality or creates happiness.
	The one study that I'm aware of that suggests that it did cause happiness, they never looked at before transition.
	So, this is the famous Christina Olson study, never looked at the mental health of the kids before they were affirmed.
	So, there are no good studies to show.
	All we do know is that if you affirm a kid when they say they come out with this, they are very highly likely to go through medical transition later.
	Wow.
	I think about it a little bit the way they talk about alcoholism.
	And there's a saying in AA, wherever you go, that's where you are.
	And what they mean is you can't outrun this problem.
	You can move from New York City to Chicago.
	You're still going to be an alcoholic in Chicago.
	They're going to have bars.
	They're going to have restaurants.
	You're going to have parties where it's served.
	You can't outrun your problems in that way.
	And since we know teenagers in general, and certainly teenage girls, are fraught with worry, concerns, self-doubt, insecurity.
	I mean, I think it applies to all of them, all of them.
	Every quote, normal girl has those feelings.
	How do you make sure they understand that's normal, that's natural, and transitioning to a different gender isn't going to solve it?
	You know, unless the problem is being trans, you know, you're going to have all the same problems when you transition and probably a few more.
	That's right.
	So I think kids need to be taught this, but it can't always come from moms.
	Girls reach a certain age, they actually don't want to hear from mom and they don't care what she has to say or how right she is.
	That's a very normal part of adolescence.
	We're not there yet.
	I'm still deluding this.
	But it's true.
	And so the mom can't be everything to them.
	They need girlfriends and they need to spend time with them.
	And one thing, they need to be offline, but we have to stop indoctrinating them in the schools and gender ideology.
	We have to stop pushing them to choose one of these exotic genders.
	Right.
	They're held out like options that you can select from a salad bar.
	And what I love about the book, too, is you have hardcore solutions.
	If this is happening and you think that it's not real, here are things you can do, which we're going to get to.
	Can we spend a minute on the comparison to anorexia, to sort of these other perceived social contagions?
	The book and you have taken a lot of flack for that comparison, saying it's a totally different thing.
	You can't compare being trans to being anorexic, one you're born with, one you're not.
	And I personally found it a compelling thought to say, in what school would they bring an anorexic out on a stage and say, and everyone can see this is a thin person?
	And the anorexic would say, I'm fat and I know I'm fat.
	And people would, in response, snap the way they do and support the kids these days and say, Yes, you're fat.
	We get it.
	We accept that you're fat.
	And then the anorexic would say, And I'm going to stop eating even more.
	And I may even have gastric bypass surgery.
	And the teachers and the administrators and the students would keep snapping and make a hero out of her.
	Everyone would know that would lead to devastation.
	You know, I understand why you can analogize this to.
	To kids who are thinking they might be trans and thinking they might have top surgery or something more severe.
	But the response is it's not an apt analogy.
	One is not completely devastating.
	One is aligning yourself with who you really are.
	And one truly is a psychological disorder.
	Your thoughts?
	Oh, gosh.
	It's devastating.
	I mean, talk to the detransitioners if you don't think it's devastating.
	There's a young woman named Kira Bell right now in England who is suing the Tavistock Gender Clinic of England, the main gender clinic of England, because she was.
	Encouraged in this, she was pushed in this when she was very in adolescence, going through a hard time, her parents' divorce and whatnot.
	And she now has no breasts, she has a permanent five o'clock shadow.
	She said all these changes, and she decided as a young woman, she's really just a lesbian, she was never a boy.
	So it is devastating.
	But to get back to your point about anorexia, the thing we know about anorexia is that it spreads among girls.
	Girls will make each other's anorexia more severe if you put them together and get them to talk about their anorexia.
	So psychologists who deal with them.
	Always keep them separate and they have to manage it very carefully so that they don't encourage each other.
	The same patterns exist with trans identification.
	Oh, I'm so dysphoric.
	I'm feeling so dysphoric today.
	Are you dysphoric?
	Oh my God, I hate my breasts.
	Do you hate your breasts?
	I hate my body.
	It's very, very similar.
	Yeah.
	I mean, that's 100% true with anorexia.
	A good friend of mine had her daughter dealing with this for a long time, and there is a real hesitation to put them inpatient because what are you doing?
	You're surrounding them with a lot of other anorexics.
	And they do medically, they tell you that they feed off of one another and it becomes almost a competition, and you get.
	Props for doing more than the other girl.
	So, if that's the case here, it's definitely not helpful to surround them with peer pressure to go this route, somebody who's on the fence.
	And you point out in the book, it's not just the schools, but the magazines, right?
	Like Cosmo, Teen Vogue.
	They're all talking about it's called chest binding, I guess, when you're trying to hide your breasts, as if it's like commonplace.
	Sure.
	Here's a great way of doing it.
	Yeah, sort of the pithy lie about this is that it's so easy to become a boy, just a shot or a surgery away, and you can become a boy.
	And look, the lies are told in some sense for naive reasons.
	You know, when you start a course of testosterone, you feel great because it reduces anxiety, which is these girls' biggest problems, and it delivers euphoria.
	So you can't wait to tell everyone how great and liberated you feel.
	But then again, you're a teenager, so you're not thinking about the fertility you'll never have.
	You're not thinking about the permanent five o'clock shadow.
	You're not thinking about your very high rate of risk of heart attack.
	But what's the balance point between, you know, the.
	The celebration that we're seeing, and almost not even celebration, the encouragement that we're seeing in these magazines and elsewhere, and where we used to be, which is to shame anybody who feels this way, to ostracize them.
	I mean, they would say that one of the reasons that the trans rate with girls used to be 0.01% is because everybody knew enough to hide it.
	They knew they'd get killed socially if they came out this way, and it was absolutely not socially acceptable.
	So, how do we figure that out?
	Where we haven't crossed over to celebration to Encourage people to go this route when it won't make their life easier, but we don't go back into shaming, judging, and creating real stress where it doesn't need to be.
	Right.
	So, a tolerant and kind society is, of course, what we would want.
	I am not opposed to medical transition for adults at all.
	And, you know, it is not something I think is a problem.
	It is not, you know, something I would ever oppose.
	But there's a real difference between, you know, pushing this on confused teenage girls who have.
	You know, are so unlikely to have gender dysphoria to constantly tell them about their gender options and being kind to someone who is transgender.
	You don't need to teach an entire student population about their gender options or encourage a gender journey in order to insist that they be kind to every other student, no matter who they are.
	And do you, so is it your contention, is it Dr. Littman's contention that if you have a daughter who is going to be trans, you will have seen signs of it prior to the announcement you get at age 16?
	Absolutely.
	These girls don't come out of nowhere.
	I interview transgender adults, and we have a hundred year diagnostic history.
	We know what it is.
	It starts in early childhood, ages two to four, and it's a severe distress in their biological sex.
	This is not something young children hide.
	So when it occurs out of nowhere in their teenage years, when they are hanging out in a group of peers who are coming out together, and when they are immersing in social media, that's not what being transgender looks like.
	Yeah.
	And I mean, what you're advocating is let's see, let's investigate that.
	You make very clear in the book, you have trans friends.
	You spoke with a lot of trans folks, adults and adolescents about this, very open minded to it and not judgmental of it.
	It's not, it's hideous and it must stop.
	It's not necessarily real.
	It might be, but it might not be in this contingent of girls whose numbers have gone through the roof.
	That's right.
	I mean, it's really important that just because a diagnosis is real, and of course, this is, gender dysphoria is a real thing, that doesn't mean.
	Everyone has it, or everyone who thinks they might have it necessarily does, right?
	We don't treat all patients the same.
	Now, you know, about transgender adults, let me just say because the activists are really energized, they don't represent them.
	I have gotten so many lovely notes, both while I was writing the book, but also after I wrote the book from transgender adults who say, listen, I went through years of therapy in order to have a successful transition.
Brianna Hill Bar Exam Crisis 00:02:48
	I have no idea what these teenage girls are doing, but it's way too fast and it's not going to set them up.
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	So, today I want to bring to you one of our features, which is called the Devil May Care All Stars.
	We'll get back to Abigail in one second.
	But first, you got to hear this story.
	So, these are people who they're not snowflakes.
	basically.
	And the woman we're featuring today is named Brianna Hill.
	This woman is a recent law school graduate out of Chicago, and she was doing what all law school students must do at the end, which is take the bar exam.
	Well, now during COVID, back in my day, you had to go into like a big auditorium and take it while a proctor was watching you.
	But now during COVID, they take the bar exam at home or wherever they want, but there's an artificial intelligence proctor that can watch you on camera.
	And if you move outside the vision of the AI proctor, You're disqualified.
	This is so nuts, 2020 America.
	So that's pressure already.
	Like, what if you have to use the bathroom?
	Even when you took the bar exam, you could pop out.
	Actually, I don't remember if you could.
	But anyway, Brianna definitely could not leave.
	Problem was, she was pregnant and she was about to give birth.
	And while taking the bar exam, which was a two-day test, she thought her water was breaking.
	And she knew if she left that chair, she was going to be disqualified and would have to wait until February to take the makeup exam.
	But she'd just been four months studying for the bar.
	So Brianna decided to continue writing her legal arguments and only went to the hospital after she had completed the two sections of the exam administered on that first day of the two-day exam.
	And then the next day, after 24 hours had passed, oh, and also the birth of her son had occurred, she went back and finished the final sections.
Women Counseled Out of Roles 00:15:39
	Actually, she did it at a table attached to her hospital bed.
	Whoa.
	I love the attitude, the strength.
	The devil may care attitude and Brianna Hill.
	I think you're going to make a great lawyer and an even better mom with the ability to have that sort of grace under pressure and to juggle multiple big things at once.
	Good for you.
	All right.
	And now back to Abigail Schreier.
	Can we talk about what to do?
	Because the book does have proposed solutions.
	And I think a lot of parents out there are going to be interested in okay, I mean, I know somebody who's going through this with their daughter and they're scared, they don't think it's real.
	They see their daughter socially awkward, maybe a little physically overweight, and looking for someplace to belong.
	And she seems to have landed here.
	And they don't want to lose their relationship with her.
	They don't want to be the parents who don't accept her, but they're looking for a way to figure it out and maybe try to help her a little.
	So, what are they?
	What are the solutions for somebody in that position?
	Well, one thing parents need to remember is that they're parents for a reason.
	It's okay to push back.
	You don't need to sacrifice your relationship, but you also don't have to agree with everything your daughters come up with.
	And sometimes when these girls start out, they start out by saying, I'm a lesbian at age 11, and the parents, right away agree with them and encourage it.
	And then they say, actually, mom, I'm pansexual.
	And then eventually they get to trans.
	And what the daughter was really looking for was independence.
	And sometimes she had no idea what she was.
	And the parents don't have to agree with everything she comes up with.
	They could just sort of let it be.
	And so that's one thing.
	Another thing is parents have to tell their daughters how wonderful it is to be a girl and a woman.
	We have beaten it into their heads that being a girl means being a victim, that being a woman means less.
	Pay and constant oppression and threat of assault.
	These are really scary options.
	And then they go online and they see porn, which is so violent, and they're terrified of sex.
	I want to get through that because to me, I know the book is all about trans issues and trans girls, teenagers, but your thoughts on feminism under two of the action points one of them is stop pathologizing girlhood, and the other one is don't be afraid to admit it's wonderful to be a girl.
	Your thoughts on feminism?
	Were I found the most compelling part of the book as somebody who has stood up for women my whole life and come against a fair amount of sexism my way?
	It's fine.
	I'm not somebody who complains about it all the time, but certainly I've encountered it.
	I loved the way you described girlhood, womanhood, and our choices.
	But let me save that and let's just get through the action points.
	One of the number one things you say is no smartphones.
	Oh, well, smartphones, we know that girls are linked to very high rates of anxiety and depression in young girls.
	Um, look, this whole thing is not really about gender at all, in a certain sense.
	It's really about the mental health crisis teen girls are in, and it's profound.
	And really, many psychological researchers have been able to tie this to the girls' use of their smartphones and social media.
	Um, so if you haven't introduced it, certainly don't.
	So, what do you do?
	I mean, you could do flip phones, they don't have the internet on them, they can you can text, but is that what you would do?
	I actually, yes, to be honest.
	I, you know, my kids are younger like yours, but I have no plans to introduce smartphones to them.
	They can get an old cell phone that does basic cell phone things.
	I definitely can't say that I will always be able to keep them off social media, but I'll certainly do my best.
	I know.
	You pointed out in the book if somebody said to you, you know, 15 years ago, I'm going to invent this device and it's going to completely ruin your future children's happiness and create massive dangers for them and possibly ruin their sex lives and their gender identity could change.
	And like, They could be bullied inside their own bedroom at night.
	Who the hell would buy that?
	You know, it's like, who would buy that?
	But we all do.
	And amazingly, there's a little bit, but there's not a huge movement to stop it.
	And you need a huge movement because if every kid at the school has one and your kid doesn't, it doesn't work.
	That's right.
	You have to go to the schools and you have to try to convince them to stop it.
	And parents who have done this, who have signed pacts to keep their kids off social media and keep them off smartphones, have been successful.
	In one of our schools, it's wait until eighth, and that's what they're trying to get us to do at least stave it off until the kids have gotten to eighth grade.
	I'd love for it to be 12th, but we'll fight that battle when we get there.
	So, what about you say, do not support gender ideology in your child's education?
	Is that sort of what I was talking about, where it was brought to our children's classroom in grade three and it was in depth and it was confusing for the kids?
	That's right.
	Gender ideology, the main idea is that whether you were told you were male at birth, That was just a guess someone made by looking at your body.
	This is the idea.
	And only you can know your true gender.
	So, your job now is to discover it.
	This is being taught in so many schools.
	It is so confusing to children, and it's all over the curriculum.
	Math teachers, I talked to one parent last week, the English teacher was pushing this with her students.
	So, what do you do?
	I mean, they do give you a notification usually that if they're going to go down this route and start talking about it.
	Most schools, even our progressive New York City ones, understand this is sensitive.
	Parents will want a heads up.
	So, should you pull your kid?
	It's a good question.
	I would start by introducing the idea.
	I mean, telling the kids that this is nonsense.
	This is pure gibberish.
	It's totally unscientific.
	The gender-bred person you mentioned is taught in schools alongside real things like STDs, and it's complete fiction.
	So, acquainting them with that idea is probably a good start.
	But there's something else, too.
	Some of the parents are so sort of idolizing of experts.
	We really need to get over our reliance on these so-called experts.
	You know, and the idea that we have to take everything a psychologist says as if it's the Bible.
	You know, I can feel the ire of folks who have transitioned or who are trans saying, Why would you pull your kid from an attempt to stop bullying against trans people, which is what they would see this as an attempt to educate them on what's happening to now maybe as many as 2% of their colleagues and their classmates with whom they're going to spend the next 12 years of school?
	Why would you pull your kid from that?
	Well, that's nonsense.
	I mean, think about it this way.
	Say the kid came out as, you know, a born again Christian in school.
	Would you then teach all the kids, you know, start teaching everyone the New Testament and have them recite the prayers and have them imagine what it's like to be saved?
	I mean, is that what you would do?
	Of course not, right?
	So it's pretextual that this is necessary for compassion or decency.
	You can teach all children.
	But there's a history of bullying trans kids.
	What about, because there's a history of bullying trans kids and the suicide rate and so on.
	There's a history of bullying all kinds of kids.
	You don't think that religious kids ever get picked on in some of our progressive cities?
	I mean, of course there is.
	That doesn't mean you indoctrinate a population in a belief system, especially one that's frankly phony.
	Because if you teach non bullying, love, acceptance, support, non judgment, it should cover that behavior.
	That's what we teach our kids.
	We don't care what somebody is, their sexual orientation, their identity.
	Gender identity.
	We care about love, support, kindness, friendship, being an ally.
	If your kids know to do that, then it should cover bullying or toward anybody for any reason.
	Of course, it should.
	I mean, there are teachers who are giving exercises of imagine, now put yourself in the position of a person who is non binary.
	Imagine you're non binary.
	How would your life be different?
	We don't ask this of kids in any other context where bullying might occur.
	Because, you know, this kind of exercise is very confusing to kids who are just sorting out their identities, you know, to begin with.
	Well, and what about it?
	To me, there's an anti feminism or anti woman strain in some of it, where they're telling little boys that they might be girls if they like the color pink.
	And they're telling little girls that they might be boys if they only like sports and not dolls.
	And to me, and they are saying this in some of the literature, some of the videos that were shown this school I'm talking about were.
	Right down that line.
	And I object as a former tomboy myself.
	I know you were as well.
	I object because I feel like the seventies version of me would have been being told she's a boy.
	And I'm all girl.
	I'm all woman.
	But girls can be more masculine in some ways.
	They can not like pink.
	They can not like dresses.
	They can not like dolls, all three of which were true in my case, but be all woman.
	And when they get to puberty, mature into these sexy, you know, more rounded in the middle, childbearing, awesome, strong, but emotional beings.
	And somehow women are being almost girls are being sort of counseled out of that, that you might have to rethink your entire gender if you don't conform with these traditional roles.
	That's exactly right.
	Girls are taught that if they are good at math, if they like physics, that they are something called, if they are, you know, admire Sally Ride, she was gender non conforming.
	That's what they are gender non conforming, which means the more remarkable you are, the less you count as a woman.
	You talk in the book about how it's, in some ways, it's been a knock on lesbians because lesbians, according to the adolescents you interviewed, are not the cool thing to be anymore.
	It's much more cool to be trans.
	And they diminish lesbians as just sort of, Confused trans people, people who are not like ready, they're masculine girls who can't admit that they're actually boys.
	Yeah, I interviewed a lot of lesbians for the book.
	And one young woman who eventually had identified as trans, Riley in the book, at 16, she decided she was trans, or actually at 14, she decided she was trans.
	But later she realized she was just a lesbian.
	And just because she had certain masculine tendencies or feelings, didn't mean that she was not really a girl.
	And a lot of lesbians I talk to believe this is basically a euthanizing of young lesbians because all these young women who would grow up to be healthy lesbian women are instead being convinced that they're really men.
	Or, and even non lesbians just being taught on your point of stop pathologizing girlhood.
	It's almost as if girls and women's tendency to be emotional, which is awesome.
	I embrace it.
	I love it.
	It's one of the things that makes us beautiful.
	And certainly to be.
	As you put it in the book, full of whirlwind fury and self doubt as teenagers, suddenly we're being told that's not normal.
	And parents are trying to therapize it and subdue it and make girls feel odd or wrong because of it, not all parents, but some, instead of just loving it and embracing it and get them prepared to understand girls are different and they're different in an awesome way.
	That's right.
	In some sense, we've never lived in such a misogynistic time.
	You know, the idea that all things that girls naturally love, Are somehow denigrated, you know, taking care of children or literature or, you know, psychology.
	So all that is denigrated.
	They have to be pushed to coding.
	They have to be in STEAM.
	They're told that all their natural inclinations are somehow lesser.
	And it's really sending a very bad message that there's a very limited number of things that are respected in this culture, and they're all male.
	You have to be CEO.
	That's what gets respected.
	And you talk about how girls, women are naturally. empathetic, which we are.
	And it's something we should embrace and celebrate.
	And I love, there's one line in the book that it jumped out at me when I read it.
	I've read it twice.
	And you talked about your daughter and how if she found me asleep on the couch, she would kiss my forehead.
	She seemed to know that buried inside this grown woman was another little girl.
	I love that.
	It's just this, it's like this unspoken bond between moms and their girls.
	And in a way, it reminded me that you got to live it.
	to communicate it to your daughter.
	You got to live embracing that we are different.
	Women and men are not the same.
	And there's nothing wrong with the things that make us individually female.
	That's right.
	I mean, there is nothing wrong with being a girl.
	And we need to stop telling our daughters that just because they have certain preferences, that makes them lesser.
	You know, girls tend to be more emotional, especially in adolescence.
	That doesn't mean there's something wrong with them.
	And it doesn't necessarily mean we need to immediately short circuit it with medication.
	And you talked about how, because we have gotten to this place in society where we as girls, as women, are told if you don't become a CEO, if you don't go, You know, in the steam right technology, if you don't become a scientist, you've settled, you've become the victim of a sexist system, and you've become a victim in general because you could have done all these things that you rejected because you live in this sexist society.
	I love the way you look at this.
	This really, I'd never had it phrased the way you phrase it in the book, but I felt like, oh my god, this woman's in my head.
	Like, this is, I needed to hear this myself because you talk about how, look, we, why can't we look at at CEOs who lead fairly, you say, fairly difficult lives.
	They make a lot of money.
	They have very little time.
	They don't have time to nurture relationships.
	They have a high rate of divorce.
	And look at the women who choose something else, a different life, as maybe being better adjusted, maybe a little wiser for preferring relationships to dollars.
	And honestly, Abigail, I've never heard somebody phrase it quite that way, but that really spoke to me.
	I mean, I think you got it.
	I think we've gone so far around the bend with Gloria Steinem's version of feminism.
	We have forgotten to remind women your choices are great no matter what they are.
	And if they're not science, if they're literature, good on you.
	Yeah, there's so much judgmentalism about women's choices.
	And a lot of it, unfortunately, is coming from women.
	They are told that if they want to stay home with their families or stay home and raise children, even for a few years, they are failing to lean in.
	They are not good enough.
	They are somehow, you know, raising kids is just, You know, or being there or staying at home or being a teacher, these are all denigrated.
Forgotten Feminist Choices 00:07:26
	And what they need to be as CEO, what they need to be as a software programmer, you know, these are really harmful messages.
	And it really is a way of putting down all womanhood and certainly all their, a lot of girls' natural inclinations.
	I know you mentioned in the book like, okay, we may admire the success of Sumner Redstone or Rupert Murdoch, my old boss.
	But the truth is, they haven't enjoyed the most enviable personal lives as we've read in the papers.
	And it reminded me of something that happened to me at Fox when I had a conversation with Rupert Murdoch and I was deciding whether or not to stay at Fox.
	And he said, You know, how's everything?
	Are you seeing your family?
	He knew I had three young kids.
	And I said, Oh, you know, I usually get to kiss them goodbye in the morning before they leave school.
	I don't really see them other than that.
	And he's like, Oh, great.
	Good, good, good.
	For him, that would have been enough.
	And I remember thinking, Oh my God, like he and I just don't have, anything in common in this department and I shouldn't be telegraphing to him that I need help in this department because he doesn't, he's not picking up what I'm putting down.
	But I too, I spoke with somebody who's a very well known female empowerment speaker and author.
	And this person, I asked her what she thought about my leaving Fox.
	And she strongly advised me not to do it because not because it was well suited for me, I was good at it, but because it was harder edged.
	And she didn't want me doing anything that wasn't that hard edged and powerful.
	It was a powerful position.
	And all I could think was, I don't care.
	I don't care about that.
	I want to see my kids.
	And I don't give a damn who tells me that it's not a feminist moment or I'm not a strong woman.
	Screw them.
	They don't have to look these kids in the eye when they're 18, 20, and 22 and say, sorry, I missed it, but here's another home for you to go visit in the summer.
	Screw that.
	And I do think we need more women saying to other women, you want to be home with your kids?
	Go for it.
	It's an awesome choice.
	You want to leave a high-powered job because you want to spend more time with your family and maybe roll back your style of living?
	Do it.
	If that's what you want, do it and do it guilt-free.
	Part of what makes us beautiful as women is that natural nurturing instinct.
	And I, for one, am sick of people demonizing it or making us feel less than because of it.
	That's right.
	You know, people are living longer.
	We should have so many more options today.
	It should be so much easier to take time off.
	But instead, you know, only one set of choices is respected.
	And the set of choices is work harder, spend more time at work.
	And when a woman doesn't want to do that, it's denigrated.
	And you're a very confident woman, but most women are probably less confident than that.
	And they're buying into the idea that only one set of options is respectable.
	You know, I was at a mom's roundtable at my daughter's school not long ago.
	And we were talking about our girls and our just issues that you have when you have little girls and so on.
	It's not like a support group, but it's an after school chat group.
	And one of the moms, she always says when she's leaving the house, mommy's going to a meeting because she's now a stay at home mom.
	And she wants to telegraph to her daughter that mom's busy, mom has important things going on, and mom used to be an important executive.
	And she's like, I don't want her to think I'm just this Upper East Side stay-at-home mom.
	And she got a lot of nods of support around the circle.
	And I had just left NBC, which was, you know, that whole experience was so toxic, my leaving and the fallout.
	And I remember saying to her, what's so bad about being an Upper East Side housewife and mother?
	Like, what, why do you feel the need to create a different image?
	And she's like, well, you know, I want her to be strong.
	I want her to be a professional.
	So why do you have to say, apologize for the choices you've made?
	Like that what is wrong if you want to be a stay-at-home wife, even not just mother, then do that.
	Why are women always apologizing for their choices as though it's weak to want to be married to a guy, take good care of him, take good care of yourself?
	You know, whatever you want to do, keep the house the way women used to do in the 50s.
	Now that we have real choices and we can do other things, that choice looks very different.
	It was one thing when that was all we could do.
	But now that we could do what we want.
	I wish women would stop apologizing for that.
	Being an Upper East Side housewife looks pretty damn good to me.
	I'm just saying, it looks damn good.
	And I don't think anybody should feel bad about it if they've made those choices.
	You know, part of the problem is we bought into the lie that women of previous eras were less strong.
	They weren't strong.
	They were just taking care of the home.
	They weren't strong.
	They were just taking care of the children.
	Well, you think back to your grandmother, and I think back to my grandmothers, and these were incredibly strong, incredibly smart, and savvy women.
	They weren't pushovers.
	But we have this lie that somehow this generation of women invented. you know, strength.
	And it just isn't true.
	And it's not their jobs that give them strength.
	It's who they are.
	And the more I talk to my friends about our daughters who are in these great schools, very, very high, highly respected schools, the more we get honest and say, well, what's the end goal?
	Do we want them to go to Harvard and become investment bankers?
	No.
	Want them to go to Yale and become top lawyers?
	No.
	What are we to be some consultant after a spectacular career at Stanford?
	No.
	Like we all want them to be happy.
	We want them to.
	Well, with a reason.
	I mean, happiness isn't really a realistic goal because normal humans only feel that sporadically.
	They don't have 10 out of 10 happiness for all of their life.
	But you want them to be well.
	To have adjusted lives that bring them joy, bring them troubles that they can handle, bring them a secure and stable family life.
	But the last thing I want is for my kids to wind up being bankers who work all the time and have huge bank accounts, but really not that much personal connection.
	That's just how I feel about it.
	Right.
	Americans are a lot less religious today.
	And one of the side effects is we've lost our moral vocabulary.
	So when we talk about the good life, we're not talking about doing good really.
	We talk about the jobs you've attained or how high you've gotten on the corporate ladder.
	Unfortunately, that's what parents are telling their children they need to do.
	And it's not necessarily, it's certainly not the life for everyone.
	And it's not necessarily a good or happy life.
	I mean, I think back to the time when I was making my decision about leaving Fox, and the friends I remember are the ones who asked me about my happiness in my family life.
	How are you with the kids?
	How are you with Doug?
	How do you think that would change if you went to a job that got you home by noon?
	Those are the friends who, Helped make it okay for me to make the leap, putting aside whether that was the organization for me to go to, just the change of changing my lifestyle and the way I was living was and remains a good idea.
	And honestly, now I look around and I'm so much happier than I've ever been.
	And I don't have that super powerful role anymore.
	And I don't have that kind of salary anymore.
	And I couldn't care less.
	I would encourage any woman feeling the way or man feeling the way I was feeling to take the leap, try a change.
	You know, what's the worst that could happen?
Spotify Employees Shut Down 00:08:49
	You know, it ends in flames and everybody's calling you awful names in the paper.
	Well, that happened.
	And you know what?
	I'm fine.
	I'm fine.
	I'm better than fine.
	It's just something to remember.
	Look, can I ask you, can I ask you what's happened to you?
	Because good God, I mean, I can feel the articles being written now about how you're a transphobe and I'm a transphobe and everyone's a transphobe just for having this conversation.
	Having been through this battering ram now over and over after your interview on Joe Rogan, after your book came out, what's your perspective on that?
	You know, it's strange.
	One thing is the book's sold well, it's selling well, and I'm very touched by the readers who've reached out and the parents who appreciate it and whatnot.
	The strange thing is that there's been a total media blackout of the book from traditional media.
	A lot of the mainstream publications refused to review it.
	In fact, told journalists who approached these publications about this book, these were top journalists, they were told absolutely not, and you could lose your job over this.
	And one thing that people don't realize is how completely our institutions have been co opted by the young woke members of their staffs.
	It's a very concerning trend in America.
	Yeah.
	Well, you went on Joe Rogan, and that interview continues to, this isn't judgment on you, cause problems for him at Spotify.
	They've had young employees there say it's transphobic, that he's transphobic, that you're transphobic, that Spotify should pull the episode.
	And so far, to its credit, although Spotify says it's had 10 or 12 meetings on this, They have not pulled the episode, which is good.
	That's a trend in the right direction.
	That's what we're about in America, having tough discussions about tough subjects so people can learn.
	And people who are doubting or questioning can have smart discussions around these issues.
	But what did you think when you saw the backlash that he's experiencing over that episode?
	Well, naturally, I felt very bad.
	I mean, the last thing I want to do is cause a problem for him.
	But I will say this he's been very strong, he's been very firm on it.
	And the woke employees who are asking for editorial control, You know, so far it's been a real victory against cancel culture.
	If he continues to stand up to them and fight, they're removing it from the platform.
	That's what they're demanding right now.
	These are employees.
	Spotify pays for gender transition surgeries and hormones for all its transgender employees.
	They're completely out in the company.
	They're completely supported.
	And they decided that wasn't enough.
	They want editorial control.
	And so far, Joe Rogan stood up to them.
	And so far, Spotify has stood up to them and said it's a move too far.
	It's been amazing to see Spotify with its spine.
	I am with you.
	I hope they stand firm and just encourage more discussion, more discussion.
	Glad came out and called you an.
	Anti trans activist.
	The critics say you have invalidated, we've heard this a lot quote, the lived experience of trans kids.
	How do you respond to that?
	Oh, no.
	Look, I'm not an activist of any kind.
	I'm a journalist.
	This was not a personal issue to me.
	Had it been a personal issue, I don't think I could have written the book, quite honestly.
	The parents who go through this are in a lot of pain.
	It wasn't personal to me.
	I fully support medical transition for mature adults.
	I just wanted to be able to look into a phenomenon, a sudden spike of trans.
	Identification and trans medical treatments for adolescent girls and find out what was going on.
	That was it.
	And even questioning this is somehow verboten today.
	It's really crazy.
	The thing to know about the activists is that they're overwhelmingly biological males, and yet they're able to shut down discussion of a mental health crisis facing teenage girls.
	Well, and they also keep shutting down any discussion about whether it's fair to have trans girls, people who are identified male at birth who transition to girl, compete in girl sports.
	And, you know, we've seen moms, mothers of color, of daughters of color, writing articles in the newspaper saying, My daughter worked her tail off to distinguish herself in track.
	And she was on path to get a scholarship for track in college.
	And then two trans girls, people who are identified male at birth, who transitioned into girls, came onto the track team and they're crushing my daughter.
	And my daughter's no longer number one.
	And this will actually affect her chances of getting into a good school.
	And the response is uniformly from the activist Ben, bigots.
	Look what happened to Martina Navratarola.
	Bigot.
	Then this woman who was like a pioneer for gay rights in tennis, man, did they shut her down for saying, I'm not sure we should be letting trans women play against, they're called quote, cis women, women who are identified female at birth, and that rings true for them throughout their lives.
	The use of these awful, pejorative terms to stifle any discussion on these tough issues, which I believe society is in good faith grappling with, is chilling and it's upsetting.
	Yeah, and girls are noticing.
	I mean, girls are noticing that no one's standing up for them in the broader culture.
	They're noticing that boys, Who didn't train hard, who had no standout achievements on the boys' team, are able to take their trophies and scholarships, and no one's protesting.
	They notice that, and it doesn't make them excited to be a woman.
	Because they don't want to get called a TERF, which is basically an anti trans radical feminist.
	And it doesn't hurt so bad to be called names, I will say, having been called a lot of them.
	What does hurt is not being able to discuss things openly and say how you feel, and then have somebody convince you of the opposite.
	If it isn't unfair, Then let's have that talk openly and honestly.
	But what's going to make somebody argue the opposite unless somebody's arguing the first position?
	You know, we've just gotten to this point where it's just shut her down.
	And I know, like, have you had your book reviewed by the Times or by any of these, you know, Kirkus, any of those?
	No.
	Kirkus, which reviews 10,000 titles a year, didn't review my book.
	Now, my book, you know, was in, when it came out, was number one in several categories on Amazon based on sales.
	It's selling.
	But no one will review it.
	None of the major magazines or newspapers reviewed it.
	And as recently as a month ago, I got contacted by a member of the National Association.
	Of science writers.
	And I found out that they had expelled a member from their listserv, from their group online forum, for even mentioning my book.
	These are science writers.
	This is not a kindergarten.
	This isn't a preschool.
	Science writers aren't even allowed to talk about my book.
	Well, and Dr. Lipman, who is an OBGYN and now a public health researcher on whose study you based some of this book, she received a ton of backlash.
	Brown University subjected it to yet another peer review.
	Several people reviewed it.
	And while they, Had her include more explicit references to the fact that she was relying on testimonials from parents who, again, trans kids say you can't go to them.
	Not one of her conclusions was changed.
	They did not change any of her conclusions on it, but boy, folks did their best to discredit her entirely.
	That's right.
	But she is, you know, her work was truly groundbreaking.
	Across the Western world, doctors have come out and said she was right.
	They are noticing the same thing, and they believe that she actually.
	Accurately portrayed this phenomenon.
	Look, I interviewed Dr. Littman extensively.
	She is not an activist.
	She is a scientist.
	And not that it should matter, but she's a political progressive.
	She had no dog in this fight.
	All she noticed was that all of a sudden there were a lot of girls in her social media feed coming out as trans in friend groups.
	And all she asked was why.
	So, closing question to the parents out there who are worried about this, who have a genuine good faith fear.
	That if this is a social contagion, it might come into their family to a daughter who is not trans but is struggling.
	What do you want them to know?
	What's the bottom line message you have for them?
	A couple of things.
	One, they're the parents for a reason.
	They're absolutely there to establish guardrails and push back on their daughter's self diagnosis.
	These girls are figuring out their own identity.
	That's totally normal.
	You don't have to agree with everything she says.
	But another thing is they don't have to go along with gender ideology in the schools.
	There's no Reason you can't show compassion for a transgender child without indoctrinating an entire student population.
	And the third thing is tell your daughter it's wonderful to be a girl, it's wonderful to be a woman.
	And there's no, not just one way to be a girl, there are a lot of ways.
	Whatever way she chooses is a perfectly great way.
	Absolutely.
Parental Guardrails for Daughters 00:01:36
	Amen to that.
	I encourage anybody, even people who don't want to read this book for the trans stuff, to read the stuff about feminism and the messaging to our daughters.
	I myself learned a lot from it and felt. just validated by a lot of your thoughts.
	You're super smart.
	Abigail Schreier, thank you so much for being here.
	Thank you so much for having me on.
	Our thanks to Abigail Schreier for that interview and for writing the book, which is very thought-provoking.
	I do recommend it.
	It'll at least get you thinking about it.
	And then do your own research.
	Figure out where you stand.
	But the whole point of this is nothing should be off limits from discussion, right?
	We all need to learn.
	And it's important to know how the trans activists feel.
	It's important to know how Abigail Schreier's research turned out.
	But do your own research and figure it out for yourself because there should be nothing that's off limits for learning in this country.
	Thank you so much for listening to the show.
	If you like it, feel free to subscribe and then also download.
	You have to do both, I'm told, in order for it to count.
	And then give us a little five-star rating if you're feeling kind and write a review online if you'd like to.
	I have been reading them.
	Super fun and a great way to connect.
	Appreciate you guys all giving us the time.
	Until the next time, take care.
	Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.
	No BS, no agenda, and no fear.
	The Megyn Kelly Show is a devil-may-care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.
	you

Chapters

00:00:00 Black Rifle Coffee Money
00:03:30 Gender Dysphoria in Tweens
00:18:47 Radical Materials and Regret
00:30:21 Permanent Testosterone Side Effects
00:45:44 Devastating Detransition Stories
00:59:37 Brianna Hill Bar Exam Crisis
01:02:25 Women Counseled Out of Roles
01:18:05 Forgotten Feminist Choices
01:25:31 Spotify Employees Shut Down
01:34:21 Parental Guardrails for Daughters