Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hello everyone, and welcome to the 163rd episode of the Atlas Society asks, my name is Jennifer Anju Grossman, born in peak Jennifer year, so please, my friends call me Jag. I am the c e o of the Atlas Society. We are the leading nonprofit organization introducing young people to the ideas of Ayin Rand in fun, creative ways, like graphic novels and animated videos. Today we are joined by Professor Michael Bailey. Before I even begin to introduce our guest, I wanna remind all of you who are joining us on Zoom, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube. You can use the comment section to type in your questions. Go ahead, queue up, start asking your questions. We'll get to as many of them as we can. Professor Michael Bailey is a psychologist, a behavioral geneticist professor in the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University. He's been a professor for 34 years.
Speaker 0 00:01:03 He has been a researcher for four decades. He's best known for his research into the reasons behind sexual orientation and gender dysphoria, along with his 2003 book, the Man Who Would Be Queen. The book was originally nominated by the Lambda Literary Foundation, but when it was determined that the book ran afoul of ever evolving trans ideological tenets, the nomination was withdrawn. Now, earlier this year, professor Bailey published a paper called Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria Parent Reports on 1,655 possible cases in the Academic Journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, which similarly sparked backlash from trans activists who pressured the journal to retract the publication. We wanted to invite Professor Bailey on the show to delve into the content of his academic work as well, as well as what his personal experience with Cancel culture can tell us about the state of academic and scientific research today, specifically with regards to the prospects of getting a better objective understanding of sexual orientation, gender, as well as more generally with regard to, uh, for the freedom of, of scientific inquiry. Michael, thank you for joining us. I'm honored to be here. So, uh, would love to start with your origin story. You were born in Lubbock, Texas, uh, raised outside of Dallas. What inspired you to study clinical psychology and particular what, uh, led you to you to your specializing in sexual orientation research?
Speaker 1 00:03:00 I, uh, went to college at Washington University, St. Louis. I was a math major. Uh, and while I did like some aspects of, um, kinda higher math, I realized that it wasn't gonna be for me in the long run because it didn't really connect to real life <laugh>. And in college, I was taking a history class on Freud, the history of Freudian thought taught by Gerald Eisenberg, who was a fantastic teacher. I fell in love with Freud and, uh, learned that I could go to graduate school and clinical psychology and possibly, um, you know, pursue that. I went to graduate school at University of Texas at Austin and promptly lost all of my affection for Freud, who is a ter who was a terrible scientist, not a great person either, but I was more concerned about his science. Um, and instead, uh, I became impressed by, um, things like, uh, the evidence for genetic causation on human traits.
Speaker 1 00:04:32 Um, I was taking, uh, a human sexuality class, very small. I think there were four people in it, uh, you know, midway through my graduate career. And a study came out about a biological theory of homosexuality. And, uh, I decided to do a follow-up study to that for my dissertation. Uh, I very much enjoyed the experience, which was edgy back then. I don't think people today realize how stigmatized homosexuality was back in the mid 1980s. This was Austin, Texas, which, you know, has always had a liberal, uh, progressive streak, but it's also had a very, uh, conservative streak as well. Um, and, uh, I, I enjoyed working with gay and lesbian people. Uh, and importantly, there were lots of fascinating questions that were unanswered, and in part because people were hesitant to go there, both because it was stigmatized and because, uh, well stigmatized, I guess, personally. People were worried, you know, that are they gonna think I'm gay? And, and also, um, politically it was very controversial topic, well into the 1990s,
Speaker 0 00:06:16 How quickly we forget, you know? And I think that, um, it, it still, there still is, uh, unfortunate stigma and prejudice in some quarters. And I think some of what we're going to get into today, um, is how paradoxically and unfortunately, some, um, sort of, of the aggressive trans ideological overreach is causing a lot of backlash from some quarters of the right, which is, um, you know, going well beyond sort of, we don't want our children to be, uh, indoctrinated or we, we want women's sports to be protected. But, um, going to a place that I don't think any of us should really want to go to in terms of feeling that people that, uh, wanna live their lives a certain way, whether it's orientation or gender identity or whatever, that, um, they, they should be equal before the law. But I, I do feel that, that it's, it's starting to bleed in, in a regressive way, um, that is starting to feel a little bit reminiscent of the, the earlier eighties or seventies or sixties. So, um, before delving into your book, the, the Man Who Would Be Queen, let's talk a bit about, again, just the course of your career, some of the earlier research that, uh, you did, including a series of studies on twins, uh, that you co-authored. If I understand correctly, you were looking into research on whether sexual orientation was more of a matter of nature or nurture. What did you find in those early studies? How have those findings held up, uh, up as your research continued to progress throughout the decades?
Speaker 1 00:07:58 Yes, I, um, was interested in using, uh, twins as is common, uh, to determine or to estimate the relevant relative importance of heredity and environment, um, in causing differences in sexual orientation. And I did, early in my career, I did two, um, studies, one on males and one on females that got quite a bit of attention. And for both studies, I found evidence that genes matter, but are hardly the whole story. You know, they're not the whole story because, um, much of the time, if you start with an identical twin who is homosexual, this is true for both males and females, that identical twins twin will be heterosexual. And the only way that can happen that is an identical twin pair in which one twin is homosexual. The other is heterosexual is due to environmental differences because they share all their genes. So environment certainly must matter.
Speaker 1 00:09:28 The question is, and still is, what kind of environment makes a difference? And one thing that we have become more and more aware of is that environment isn't what most people think of it as. Think of it as it's not, you know, what your parents read to you or your parents' child rearing philosophy. The most powerful environment is the environment that varies within a family, that makes children of the same family different from each other. This includes both social environmental factors, such as peer groups that can differ between twins, but it also, um, includes biological factors that happen before birth. These are poorly understood, but I think that they are likely the most powerful cause of twin differences related to sexual orientation, particularly among males.
Speaker 0 00:10:41 Interesting. So I also want to be able to get to the most recent controversy, uh, which you read, read a really fascinating, wrote a fascinating response to in, in Barry Weiss's Free press. But first, let's go back to, uh, 2003 when you wrote and published The Man Who Would Be Queen. Um, and, uh, perhaps we can show that cover again. I apologize. Uh, I was not able to get a a, my hands on a copy of it because they're, they are few and far in between. Um, so, you know, I'll also be interested to see if at some point, you, you might, uh, think it worthwhile to update the book or to make it available in other, uh, formats or, or whether or not, um, in today's climate, that might even be possible. But the book was interesting from a number of perspectives. One is that it draws on the scientific research into both sexual orientation and to, and gender dysphoria that you and others in your field have published.
Speaker 0 00:11:44 But at the same time, it's written for a lay audience. Uh, notably, however it is published 20 years ago. Uh, even the terminology has changed. Um, it, it was published long before we found ourselves at this cultural moment when there's pressure to state your pronouns to print, there's nothing wrong with biological males competing in women's sports or, uh, risk being outcast as a trans phobe. Unfortunately, it's, it's, as I said, not that easy to get a a one's hands on a copy of the book today with rare copies selling for over $200. So perhaps you can share with our audience what you hope to accomplish with the book. And what were some of the key takeaways that you'd hoped, uh, readers back then and still today might ponder?
Speaker 1 00:12:40 I had been interested in studying transsexuals, uh, in the 1990s, never having met one, but having similar assumptions as everybody else that, for example, male to female transsexuals. These were people born male who wanted to become trans women, that they were essentially, uh, women trapped in men's bodies, that they were extremely feminine. And, um, you know, that it would be fairly obvious why they would wanna change sex. Uh, but I met a trans woman who defied that stereotype was not at all like that. She was clearly, and when I say she, she had been born male, had, uh, obtained sex reassignment surgery, and she was clearly sexually motivated. Um, I don't know how much in the nitty gritty I should go into, but when male, she would, uh, not only cross dress, but simulate male anatomy, uh, and film herself and become quite sexually aroused. Um, and this was really, uh, not consistent with my preconceptions. Then I found out that a friend of mine, guy named Ray Blanchard, who is, uh, a very important, uh, sex researcher, uh, in Toronto, he had studied people like this, and we understood what was going on with them. They have something called autogynephilia auto self gyna woman, Ophelia, love of these are males who are sexually aroused by the idea of being a woman or the act of imitating women,
Speaker 0 00:15:05 Which is very different than a a two-year-old or three-year-old, or four-year-old boy, boy, right? Who,
Speaker 1 00:15:13 Yeah, there
Speaker 0 00:15:15 He has, yeah, kind of standard gender dysphoria. And they, they are disoriented because they do not feel that they are the person inside that everyone is reacting to them as.
Speaker 1 00:15:28 Yes, Blanchard developed a, um, taxonomy of transsexualism male to female transsexualism, and there were two types, uh, one I will call child onset. These are the little boys who at age two or three, they are extremely feminine. They want to be a girl. They dress as girls, they wanna play with dolls. They don't like boys things, and most of them will, what we call desist. They will know by the time they're adults, they will no longer desire to change sex. Almost all of them will become gay men. But a subset of them, you know, it's unclear what percentage, you know, 20 10% to 20% will persist mm-hmm. <affirmative> and will decide that they want to, uh, transition to the other sex. Autogynephilia transsexuals are very different in their life course. Uh, their, uh, onset clear onset anyway, is typically in adolescence with the onset of strong sexual arousal. And the most common early sign is that they discover that it is sexually arousing for them to put on women's clothing. Typically, their sisters or mother's lingerie look at themselves in the mirror and, uh, masturbate. Um, and so it's an entirely a sexual thing. The these people are not notably feminine. The my informant, for example, like to work on cars and talk about hockey <laugh>. Um, so the, and autogynephilia transsexuals in the West are just as common as the other kind, the child onset. And yet really, so
Speaker 0 00:17:42 How, let's just, so to level set, you know, what, what are we talking about with early onset? Again, it sounds like predominantly male, uh, two year old, three year old, four year old who, who start out with, um, not wanting to have anything to do with male things and wanting to behave in a, you know, like, like a little girl, the vast majority of whom, um, as you say, desist and transition to just being adult, you know, gay guys, uh, with the minority, uh, persisting and wanting to, to live, continue to live a, a life as a, as a, a woman or female. So are we talking one in a thousand? I mean, for the early onset male gender dysphoria, one in 10 thou, like, what, what, what are the numbers?
Speaker 1 00:18:35 So, I'm sorry to seem pedantic about this, but there is a distinction that needs to be made, and it's between the people who have these risk factors and the people who decide to transition, not everybody with the risk factor transitions. The ones who transition, I would call transsexuals. The ones with the risk factors would be, you know, just really feminine boys, really, really feminine boys with gender dysphoria and the other type, uh, males with autogynephilia. Certainly not all of them transition either. So, um, how common are the youth with these risk factors? It's very hard to say. I would guess it's, I would guess less than 1% each type. Now, how common are the transitioners? Back when I first started studying this, it was very rare. About one in 20,000 males was estimated to be transsexual in the sense of getting sex reassignment surgery. It seems like that has changed, and it's becoming more common. People are, people with these risk factors are going further. Um, and
Speaker 0 00:20:16 So let's talk a little bit about the, the controversy that, what, what was the controversial aspect of that first book, and was it a question of early controversy or that, you know, it happened when it, uh, got the Lambda literary, um, foundation award?
Speaker 1 00:20:38 Yeah, so I, um, I was aware that some people would find the book, book controversial because I had, um, made public, I'd put it on my website, uh, the portion of my book about transsexuals. The book was divided into three parts. First was about little boys who wanna be girls. The middle was about gay men and the ways that they're feminine and the ways that they're masculine. And the third part was about male to female transsexuals. And it was the third part that got a subset of trans women extremely upset. And, um, their fury at me was caused by my writing about autogynephilia and endorsing that theory. I believe that these trans women who came after me were themselves autogynephilia transsexuals in denial, and they were in denial, uh, and hated autogynephilia theory for two related reasons. First, they believed probably correctly, that it's not good pr <laugh>, that people would, many people would judge them less well if they thought that they had this weird sexual thing than if they thought that they were women trapped in men's bodies.
Speaker 1 00:22:16 The second, and I think probably more powerful motivation for their hatred is that autogynephilia gender dysphoria is associated with a very strong wish to be a woman, to be li, to be a woman, to be feminine, to be like woman, women, and not to be a male with this weird sexual thing. And, uh, the theory says that they are males with this weird sexual thing, uh, and, uh, I think that they experienced it as a narcissistic injury. Now, before we go into the next question, I do want to make clear that I received at least as much correspondence by autogynephilia individuals thanking me for finally helping them understand themselves as I received hostile correspondence from people, uh, calling me names on Twitter. Now, I have many autogynephilia followers, um, mainly young, uh, who identify as autogynephilia, except that they're autogynephilia are really wanting to know what the science tells us and so on.
Speaker 0 00:23:47 Well, you had one statement, um, in response to the controversy, which I really think has stood the test, the test of time. And that is true acceptance of the transgender requires that we truly understand who they are. Right.
Speaker 1 00:24:10 I, I, yes, I would <laugh> I, uh, believe that was true. It still is true.
Speaker 0 00:24:19 All right, moving on to your more recent work. Could you start by, uh, defining for us rapid onset gender dysphoria and contrast it with the kind of, um, uh, gender dysphoria that you described that you had been studying previously that was primarily a, a male, very, very young phenomenon?
Speaker 1 00:24:42 Yes. Um, before I do, and this is related, I just will say that the child onset case cases, or the type also has also occurs in natal females, girls that was known. And until recently, that was the only type known that happened in NATO females. That has changed, and it has changed very recently about the past 15 years, and we've really only been aware of it in the past 10. During that time, natal females who never as children, seem to have any problem with their birth sex, many of whom were white feminine in into adolescence. They had boyfriends, <laugh>, uh, they liked wearing dresses and so on.
Speaker 1 00:26:04 These girls were suddenly announcing to their parents that they were trans, and many of them had peers who were also announcing to their parents that they were trans. It appears that this is a socially contagious phenomenon, peer-to-peer mainly. It also, uh, is related to, uh, widespread beliefs that anybody might be trans <laugh>, uh, uh, and not be aware of it until, and that, uh, suppression of one's transgender nature leads to all kinds of problems. And that's another thing I haven't yet mentioned. Uh, the girls with rapid onset gender dysphoria, R O G D, um, they tend to have problems, emotional problems that, so for example, in our study that we will probably talk about, some parents said that these girls had a high rate of emotional problems that preceded any kind of concerns with gender by four years on average. That's a long time.
Speaker 0 00:27:32 Yeah. So let's talk about your, your paper. What you found, uh, the 1,655 parents. Was this, um, a survey based, uh, paper interview? Uh, how long did it take? How what was involved?
Speaker 1 00:27:51 A woman named Susanna Diaz invited me to a small conference, uh, in, uh, I think it was 2017. Uh, and there were journalists and some, uh, academic researchers attending, and Susanna, but that's not her real name, I don't know her real name, presented, uh, survey results that she had collected from the website, parents ofd kids dot, uh, com. And I was impressed with these results, and I encouraged her to publish them. She's not an academic. Uh, and so eventually we collaborated on this paper, which was published in March in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, and it was what the title says, it was Parent Reports on 1,655 possible cases of O G D. And these parents were recruited. Uh, they would come to the website, they would see, uh, an invitation to take the survey. If you think your child has this problem, <laugh>, which is rapid onset gender dysphoria, she described it as, I've described it to you, please consider, uh, taking this survey.
Speaker 1 00:29:34 Um, and so parents, uh, provided data about their children and, uh, about the development of the R O G D and what it was like for the family and so on. And I analyzed and wrote up mainly with Susanna's help. Uh, she definitely helped write it as well, uh, the article. And, uh, we submitted it to the Archives of Sexual Behavior, who, uh, quite thoroughly reviewed it, many pages of, uh, criticisms that, uh, we dealt with by modifying the paper. Uh, it wa it was very thoroughly rereviewed and, uh, it was published. And, um, immediately it was attacked, uh, by a group of trans activists and their allies who wrote an online letter, uh, criticizing our study, but also demanding that the editor of the journal who, and the editor accepted our paper, his name is Ken Zucker, that he be fired from editorship. Uh, now Zucker is, uh, has been controversial among trans activists because he believes that, um, he believes that children who are gender dysphoric that we should try to treat them for their gender dysphoria and try to reduce it before taking steps to medically transition them.
Speaker 1 00:31:35 Uh, he is also a superb editor, uh, in the sense that he wants controversial topics to be aired in the journal, both sides, not just one side. I counted 10 different pieces that he has accepted that were directly critical of articles that I had published. Uh, so I have, uh, sometimes benefited by critiquing other people, but I've sometimes been a target of criticism that's the way science should work. But these activists don't want discussion. They want silence about R O G D, and I can tell you why, but I'll pause and see if you have a question.
Speaker 0 00:32:35 Well, um, I, I would like to get into, into that. Um, so just a for a bit of clarification on the study, uh, was it mainly what, so when you say children, was it of all girls, or what was the percentage, if it wasn't, if it was, yeah, male and female. Um, and, uh, let me
Speaker 1 00:32:56 Just summarize, uh, quickly some of our main findings mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, first we restricted, uh, the, uh, responses to parents who had chil whose, uh, children had come out as transgender between the ages of, I think it was 11 and 21. Uh, these youth who parents were reporting on were, um, 75% natal female, 25% natto male. And we think possibly a lot of the natal males were, uh, not R O G D, but autogynephilia, I, I can tell you why, but let me proceed with the R O G D. Uh, parents said that these, uh, youth had a high rate of emotional problems. Um, about half of them had a formal diagnosis, mainly anxiety or depression. These problems preceded the gender dysphoria, as I said, by about four years on average.
Speaker 1 00:34:18 And, uh, over, uh, let's say two thirds of the female cases had socially transitioned or at least taken steps to socially transition. That means that they had changed their pronouns, their dress, um, the, the way they would move, uh, try to talk in a lure voice and so on. Uh, mainly to the other sex, although, uh, some of them were non-binary. Uh, interestingly, on about half that rate, about only one third of the NATO males had socially transitioned. There was a pretty low rate of medical transition, uh, by which I mean in this population hormones, I think, uh, the rate in both males and females was only about 7%. Now, what are the predictors of transition? Well, it turned out that for both kinds of transitions, social and medical one predictor was, was emotional problems. The, the youth who had more emotional problems were more likely to transition. And even more powerful predictor of transition was if the family visited a gender specialist, those who did, the youth whose family visited, visited a gender specialist, were especially likely to transition. And the parents in our survey said that, uh, they thought that the specialists were pressuring them to transition their children. And finally, for now, after social transition, parents said that the youth got worse off, less happy.
Speaker 0 00:36:32 Interesting. Okay. Because that would be, I think what, uh, the devil's advocates would say is, well, of course this was proceeded by unhappiness and, uh, emotional problems because they were a man, a boy trapped in a woman's body. And so of course, they were going to be un unhappy. It's not that the unhappiness caused this phenomenon, but I think when one puts it into the context of the follow-up that, um, the research showed that it wasn't like, okay, well that was the problem. This was the fix. Now you're feeling better and you're feeling more yourself. But in fact, if it, it didn't help, if, if anything, it made it worse. So with your per permission professor, we do have a lot of questions coming in from the audience. How do you feel about that? Alright. And, uh, there, there's some here that are, you know, have terminology and things that I don't even understand. So if these are names that come up that you're not familiar with, we got a lot of questions, so we can just keep moving along. Um, let's see. Okay. Zach Carter on Facebook asks, as a scientist, what are your thoughts on the psychologist John Money and what he did with David to David Remer? I don't know anything about that, but yeah.
Speaker 1 00:37:50 So David Rimer is a famous case. Uh, he was an identical twin boy, and, uh, doctors inadvertently destroyed his penis in a minor operation. And, um, in consultation with John Money, who's a famous psychologist, the parents decided to raise, uh, David Rimer as a girl. And that, uh, case ended, uh, badly in that sense because Dave Rimer was a very unhappy girl. And when the parents finally told Rimer what David Rimer what, uh, the truth was, he immediately switched back to being male. Uh, tragically Rimer, uh, eventually killed himself, but before concluding as many people do that it had anything to do with, uh, John money, um, you should know that his identical twin who didn't experience this at all, had killed, had already killed himself. And suicide is, uh, uh, highly influenced by genetic factors. So, I don't know, nobody knows. Uh, it was a tragic story regardless of that. Uh, and you know, there's some stories coming out that who, whose veracity, I doubt that, uh, John money, uh, sometimes made the twins undress in front of each other and, uh, simulate, um, sex play. Um, I, I have talked to people very familiar with, um, what has been written, and they doubt this. Um, I think on the right, especially, there's been a tendency to demonize John money. I I think he probably made a mistake in this case, but it was a difficult case.
Speaker 0 00:40:01 All right. Um, we have another question here. Facebook, Candace Morena asks, is there any hope you see on the horizon for a civil discussion on these subjects of, uh, in the greater academic field? Or is it too politicized and charged today?
Speaker 1 00:40:22 That, that's a good question that I certainly wonder about too. Um, I am collaborating with experts who, some of whom are past or present academics, uh, and we will force the issue because we will be collecting, uh, good data on this. And if as we expect, uh, R O G D appears to be well supported empirically, then it, it just can't be suppressed any longer. Um, you know, academia is, uh, currently problematic in all kinds of ways about all kinds of, uh, controversial areas. This is, trans stuff is only one of them. And as an academic, uh, who, you know, I, I had a very happy career in academia until fairly recently when the, when academia has just gone, uh, bezerk. Um, I'm very hopeful that we can go back. Uh, but I can't promise <laugh> and I'm worried
Speaker 0 00:41:51 On Facebook. George Opolis asks, it seems like detransition are rarely talked about in the media, and activists look at them negatively. Is there any research statistical data that shows the actual number of detransition?
Speaker 1 00:42:10 It's very difficult to estimate the number of detransition, however they are being studied. Uh, the Lisa Litman, who is the woman who first, uh, proposed the concept and named rapid onset gender dysphoria, she and I are co-authors on a paper that is being reviewed currently, and we, uh, are hopeful that it will be published soon on Detransition. Uh, we have, i, I think 80 or 90 detransition in there. Uh, and we have some very interesting findings. Um,
Speaker 0 00:42:53 Can you share any of them with us before publication or is it embargoed?
Speaker 1 00:42:58 It's not embargoed and, uh, I don't think that there's, uh, any reason why. I can't tell you what I'm about to tell you. Uh, at least limit if you see this and you don't approve, please forgive me. Uh, the finding that I will tell you is that these people who are mainly natal females are so much happier after detransition than they were while they were trans identified. It is remarkable how improved they are in their happiness. That's important.
Speaker 0 00:43:47 Yeah. Well, I think just to kind of put this into context, you and I were talking a little bit before we went live and, uh, you were saying that one of the reasons you became interested in this field, in, in the first place, particularly with regards to, um, you know, theology behind homosexuality, was wanting people to live happy lives, right? Wanting individuals to, to be themselves, to, to live happy lives. And, um, and to not get kind of ensnared in a, a current sort of fad, whether it be, uh, gender specialists that, um, encourage them or send them off in a certain way that, you know, it's, it seems to be your, um, your finding that, uh, if, if in fact this is someone who is, um, a natal male who has, is, is gay and, you know, um, or very feminine finding their way, um, has a much higher chance, uh, a lot of the time, maybe not all the time, but in, in many cases, of finding happiness, finding that partner, living a normal life, uh, without the medical, um, intervention.
Speaker 0 00:45:13 So I think that's, uh, a, a good context to, to put it in, is we're, we're not trying to say that we want people to conform to, you know, this standard or that standard, but really trying to get the research and understanding and the findings, um, so that we, we know better and are able, better able to inform people, um, and clear a path for them to, to go their own way. So this was an interesting question. It's kind of a step back question. Um, a little broadening our, our scope here, which is asking, uh, professor Bailey, do the gender studies programs of today share anything in common with the academic psychology studies from your youth you studies you studied in your day?
Speaker 1 00:46:05 So, um, I believe that gender studies programs, by and large, the ones that I know about are terrible influences on intellectual inquiry. They have, uh, bad, uh, hypotheses. They, uh, use silly jargon and they oppose free inquiry. Um, a lot of the times, uh, they prefer safety and, uh, you know, they're, they know what's good for people and, you know, shut up <laugh>. And, uh, so I, I think a world without gender studies would be a better world. Um, and I, I hope someday the world, uh, I there will be a world without gender studies. Uh,
Speaker 0 00:47:13 I'm wondering if you have any perspective on the controversy surrounding things like biological males competing in women's sports. One of my previous guests on the show, um, it's a bit controversial, it's Kara Dansky, she's the author of The Abolition of Sex, how Transgender, the Transgender Agenda Harms Women and Girls. And, um, she Pulls no punches. She describes the gender identity movement as quote, left wing misogyny on steroid steroids, and even calls it a quote, men's right movement intended to objectify women's bodies. That's pretty harsh. Is there any fairness in that criticism, or is that more of a, a left wing feminist's perspective on, on what's going on?
Speaker 1 00:48:00 Yeah, I, I think, um, so you, you kind of ask two questions there, and I'll just start with the, uh, NATO males competing in, uh, women's sports, I think is a terrible idea. And, um, I think it's <laugh>. I think most people think it's terrible idea. It's been a really bad strategic mistake, uh, by trans activists and pro and progressive activists pushing for that. Um, and you know, I, I think many trans women <laugh> also agree that that's terrible idea, and they don't want it. You know, I, I think, um, Kara, uh, Dan's, uh, idea's a little, um, over-inclusive. I, I think, uh, there are different reasons for, uh, transgender, uh, identification and practices and, uh, different kinds of people behave differently. And some, you know, there are many admirable trans people, uh, uh, and a number of them think that it's important that they, uh, be allowed to transition.
Speaker 1 00:49:33 And, uh, I think that may well be, I, what I would say though is that, uh, that's a very, uh, drastic measure and, uh, we should have good evidence, uh, for them before they make this decision. And, uh, as far as children go, I think it should be off the table <laugh> and, uh, and, you know, adolescents, uh, I, you know, I also would say we should be very cautious and, uh, I would not let my adolescent child, uh, even if they were one of the two types that I think are actually, uh, real gender dysphoria, that is child onset or, uh, autogynephilia gender dysphoria, I would want them to wait, um, until they're adults. And I would certainly want them to be informed.
Speaker 0 00:50:39 Yeah. Well, I think in particular, as you were talking about the, um, early onset, um, childhood gender dysphoria and that the large percentage of, of those young boys with that would later desist and go on to live, you know, normal lives as, as, as male homosexuals, right. And, um, perhaps to wait and see which way someone's going to go before taking a, you know, a drastic surgical interventions. So, um, in just the few minutes that we have left, left, I'd like to hear, you know, circle back to the, that experience with the retraction of the paper. Um, I can only imagine how ex rightly upsetting that might be for an academic of your stature. I mean, uh, retractions are, uh, usually associated with things like plagiarism or, you know, some, some other kind of really, um, just unforgivable, uh, professional transgression. And in this case it was, um, a thoroughly vetted paper. So how does all of this affect you on a, on a personal level, um, and how does it, how do you fear, fear that it might affect peers? And what do you see your personal role, not just as a academic, working on this particular area of inquiry, but, but also, um, as, as someone who's in the spotlight and, um, who, who might be able to be a lone voice of reason and, um, perhaps an example for others to follow?
Speaker 1 00:52:33 I have very thick skin, both constitutionally and, uh, experience has only thickened it. The, uh, book controversy back in 2003, uh, that was hard and scary because they were trying to get me fired, and they were making my life quite difficult. This recent retraction related controversy was nothing compared with that. Wow. Uh, the, I, I did lose some sleep, uh, not because of concerns about myself, but because I was worried that Springer Nature, the company that publishes archives of sexual behavior would, uh, bow to the activists and fire Ken Zucker. Once it became clear they weren't going to do that, uh, I was no longer, uh, very affected. The subsequent publicity has been tremendous. It has raised awareness.
Speaker 0 00:53:40 The Streisand effect,
Speaker 1 00:53:41 <laugh>, yes, both about rapid onset gender dysphoria and the links to which activists will go to suppress it. Uh, to give you an idea, uh, our article, this is an academic journal article. Um, it was published open access, so anybody, uh, can go to the website and download it. It has been, um,
Speaker 0 00:54:09 So it's still there. So when they retract it, they still find it. How does that work? It's,
Speaker 1 00:54:15 But, uh, now, uh, they have defaced it by, uh, putting the words retracted article on every single page. Uh, I think it's mostly still, uh, readable, but anybody who wants an original copy, uh, uh, I'm happy to provide. Um, but the article has been viewed, uh, I think I checked this morning, 136,000 times, which is quite remarkable for an academic article. Um, so the publisher keeps metrics, uh, um, our article is ranked as of this morning, 36 out of over 400,000 articles published around the same time in terms of online attention, including news articles and so on. Uh, we've, uh, uh, welcome attention from people potentially interested in helping fund, uh, our, we have a big study in the works that, gosh, we have five minutes left. Uh, I, I hope I can get a minute just to tell you about it.
Speaker 0 00:55:36 Please go ahead.
Speaker 1 00:55:37 Yeah. So Lisa Lipman, who, uh, was the one who first studied rapid onset gender dysphoria, Ken Zucker, who is, uh, a legendary, uh, scientist studying gender dysphoria in children and adolescents and I are the primary investigators on a soon to launch study that will consist of surveys of both parents and gender dysphoric youth. We wanna s survey both, not just the parents, but the youth as well, and follow them up over at least five years, probably more, uh, to see what predicts various outcomes, what predicts who's going to transition versus desist, what predicts who's going to be happy, I suggest with
Speaker 0 00:56:37 Their transition,
Speaker 1 00:56:38 With their transition or, or with assistance. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, I told you before that I think a lot of the natal males are motivated by autogynephilia. Well, we'll collect the necessary data to see if that's true. Um, this is gonna be a very important study. We, we, uh, uh, have said that we expect to enroll 5,000 participants to follow up over, uh, time. And I don't think we're gonna have trouble getting that many people. So, but it's a
Speaker 0 00:57:16 Lot of work if there are parents that want their kids to be enrolled or how can people,
Speaker 1 00:57:23 Uh, get involved <crosstalk> start this, we'll publicize it widely and parents will, uh, have that opportunity. And, and I hope that, uh, any parents with, um, so this is gonna be restricted to parents whose, uh, gender dysphoric child, um, became gender dysphoric between, I think the ages of 11 and 21 inclusive. Uh, so that's the rapid onset demographic. Uh, so I hope parents, first of all, any parents in that situation, I am sorry you're in that situation, but I do hope they will, uh, participate in our study once it starts. I think early fall is the best guess of when it will start.
Speaker 0 00:58:20 All right. And until then, is the best place to follow you on Twitter or
Speaker 1 00:58:26 Follow me on Twitter. Uh, anybody who has a particular request of me or something they wanna tell me, you can email me, me, me, email me at j m as in John, Michael hyphen Bailey, b a i l e
[email protected]. That's my work address. And we also have a, uh, research institute that Lisa Lipman has started. It's I C G D r.org.
Speaker 0 00:59:00 Great. Great. All right. And if perhaps we can just quickly put that in the chat as well as we are, um, wrapping up here. So thank you, professor. Uh, really appreciate it. Thanks for your all you've done and all you're going to continue to do, um, in the, uh, the years and the decades ahead as we navigate these waters and hopefully get to a, um, a, a more, uh, objective, a less sort of heated and, um, uh, a, a a less kind of politicized situation so that we can really look at things as they are and, um, help create a context in which parents and children can, um, can, can be cautious, can be prudent, and can find, uh, really the best path forward for them. I wanna thank everyone else who joined us. Thanks for all of the great questions that you asked today.
Speaker 0 00:59:56 Uh, as always, folks, uh, out there on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, um, if you like the content from the Atla Society, if you like the work we do, interviews like this, it, you know, takes a lot to put it behind together, behind the scenes. So please consider, uh, making a tax deductible donation to support our work. All first time donations of any size will be matched by our board of pro trustees. Next week I will be traveling to speak at Young Americans for Liberty, uh, their, uh, revolution conference in Orlando. So my colleague, professor, uh, senior scholar Richard Salzman, is going to be taking over with the interview of fellow Objectivist Scholar Professor Raymond c Niles, and the special, um, Atlas Society asks interview. So please be sure to tune in then. Thank you.
