On this week’s episode, Abigail Shrier joins to discuss her new book Irreversible Damage: The transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. As her book points out–gender dysphoria is now mainstream. Today, there more girls are coming out as transgender, and they’re being praised for it. We delve into the data, including how the medical industry, educators, and the media all play a role.
Abigail Shrier is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal. She holds an A.B. from Columbia College, where she received the Euretta J. Kellett Fellowship; a B.Phil. from the University of Oxford; and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
Transcript
Beverly Hallberg:
Welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg and on this episode, I’m thrilled we have on Abigail Shrier to discuss her new book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. As her book points out, gender dysphoria is no longer rare. Today, there are more girls who are coming out as transgender and being praised for it. We’ll delve into the data, including how the medical industry, educators and the media play a role. Before we bring Abigail on, a little bit about her. She is a frequent contributor at the Wall Street Journal. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia College, where she received the Euretta J. Kellett Fellowship. She studied philosophy at the University of Oxford and she is a graduate from Yale Law School. Thank you so much for coming on She Thinks today.
Abigail Shrier:
Thanks so much for having me on.
Beverly:
So, the book, as I said, the title is The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, Irreversible Damage. Now, this is a provocative book. What made you brave enough to write a book like this?
Abigail:
Well, I know the whole topic is provocative, but I actually don’t think the book is terribly provocative, or at least it shouldn’t be. The book is just an honest exploration, journalistic exploration of why out of nowhere in the last decade, we have seen a sudden explosion in transgender identification among teenage girls. This is a population that has never before in the whole history of gender dysphoria, stretching back a hundred years, the so-called discomfort, severe discomfort in one’s biological sex. In a hundred years, we’ve never seen females present with this insignificant numbers and certainly not teenage girls with no childhood history of gender dysphoria. And today, in the last decade, they are now the predominant demographic. So the book explores why.
Beverly:
And so, let’s get into some of the details on that. You say that this was rare decades ago. First of all, what is the data behind that? How often would especially a girl struggle with gender dysphoria and what are the numbers today?
Abigail:
Right. So you’re talking about it, something that afflicted 0.01% of the population so 1 in 10,000 people. So probably nobody you went to high school with. And today, we now know that over 2% of high school students in America are identifying as trans so 1.1 million American kids, just in high school and the numbers are getting bigger and we know that they’re out of nowhere overwhelmingly female. Now the numbers are actually quite explosive across the entire West so you’re seeing numbers come out of the UK even. They’ve had a over 4000% rise in adolescent girls asking for gender treatment at their clinics. We know that this is sort of taken over the West out of nowhere. And so the book really looks at why. How did this population suddenly experience an epidemic of something they had never experienced before?
Beverly:
Well, let’s get into the why. Now I’m sure that there are some people who say, “We always have this percentage of children who struggled with gender dysphoria. They just weren’t in a comfortable enough environment to be able to talk about it.” Do you find that that is the case? Are there other influences that you found as you researched the book?
Abigail:
No. No, I don’t find that compelling. I’ll tell you why. So I’m a journalist. I looked at everything from all kinds of issues about this, or from every point of view. I conducted nearly 200 interviews. That particular argument I don’t find compelling almost at all and I’ll tell you why. Because for three reasons, one, the the book is based on the scientific research of public health researcher, Lisa Littman at Brown University and what she found when she did a study of these adolescents was that all of a sudden you had 70%… Sorry, 70 times the expected prevalence rate of trans identification within friend groups and these friends were coming out as trans within a very short period of time. So in other words, all of a sudden you had clusters of trans identified teenage girls, and they were coming out together with their friends.
Okay. So if we were just reverting to a normal base rate of transgender identification in the population, you wouldn’t see it clustered in these friend groups that were suddenly coming out together. Okay. But there are two other reasons I don’t think that’s compelling. One reason is, of course, today we have the most trans accepting society we’ve ever had in America and many would say that’s a good thing. But if we were just reverting then in this climate of greater acceptance to a normal base rate of transgender identification among teenage girls, then you… Sorry, among women more generally, then you would expect to see women in their 40s and 60s who were previously unable to come out as trans suddenly doing it. But we’re not seeing that. We’re not seeing a rush of women in their 40s, 50s, 60s coming out as transgender. We’re seeing the same population that falls for every hysteria, from cutting, to anorexia, to bulimia, falling for this and coming out as transgender and…
Beverly:
And obviously…
Abigail:
Yeah.
Beverly:
I was just going to say, there’s got to be more than just one factor here. I know you talk about the different factors in the book, but I think it’s fascinating that you say it’s often groups of girls, these cliques. So is it now the socially cool thing do to come out as transgender?
Abigail:
Undeniably, the number of… I’ve interviewed a lot of adolescent girls for the book as well as parents and whatnot and therapists and doctors across the spectrum, people who think it’s the greatest thing in the world and people who were very skeptical of this rush to medical transition. And I will tell you that they all note that the LGBTQ push for celebrating these identities throughout the school system, certainly, intensely in high school and even middle school across the country means that this is a very attractive identity, especially trans. Trans, it’s one of the sort of coolest identities, but it’s also one of the few that kids can choose. A lot of these girls who have been affected by this are middle to upper middle class white girls, and they know that that’s not such a great identity to have today but they can’t choose a different race, right? They can’t choose a different ethnic background but what they can choose is to identify as transgender and to achieve all that celebration that they get as a result.
Beverly:
And what’s fascinating to me about this is I know as we go through those awkward years of junior high and going through puberty, I think a lot of girls are uncomfortable with their bodies as they’re changing. Do you think sometimes this process of changing and being uncomfortable and insecure leads them or leads their friends to push them into this thought process, telling them, “Well, maybe you’re transgender. Maybe that’s why you’re struggling with your body”?
Abigail:
So that’s when social media comes in. So it’s not that they’re… They do tend to transition in their friend group. They announced their… Sorry, new identity in friend groups, but the real influence, the place that they are now taking their questions is not to their girlfriends in person, because this generation doesn’t spend anywhere near as much time in person with friends as previous generations did, where they take their questions about themselves or questions about their bodies or sexuality, everything is the one place that they trust the most and spend the most time and that is social media. So they take their questions to social media where truly, an endless number of transgender influencers wait to advise them and to encourage them in this new identity.
Beverly:
And I’m sure the coronavirus doesn’t help with the lack of socialization where we’re relying on technology more than ever before. Of course, young people tend to use a lot of social media. And I would assume with social media as well, it’s not just who you’re getting feedback from, but it’s also these curated galleries on Instagram and pictures of people telling you what you should be like and there’s always been that pressure with magazines for women. But I am assuming girls have that added pressure of social media, they’re on it all day long, showing images of what they should be.
Abigail:
That’s exactly right. So social media has two sides to it. Number one, it certainly, we know it increases their anxiety and depression and makes them feel worse about their own bodies and their own images by constantly providing images that are edited into which they will never measure up and it also facilitates access to all kinds of trans gurus and influencers. You don’t even have to go looking for them. It’s the thing to know. A lot of these girls come upon them when they’re just going to an art sharing website or something very innocuous. I’ve heard that story many, many times, and they will come upon these trends and influencers and the videos queue up automatically and they’re very enjoyable to watch. I’ve watched hours and hours and hours of them. And they really push the idea that if you just go on a course of tea, as they call testosterone, your whole life will get better.
Beverly:
And let’s talk about what educators, what role they play in this. When it comes to our public school system, if a child is claiming that they struggle with gender dysphoria, they go and they tell a counselor at their school. Is that something that’s automatically told to their parents? And is there also encouragement often by educators for them to embrace this lifestyle?
Abigail:
Okay. So not only is it not told to the parents, but in most school systems, the policy, or at least certainly California, New York and New Jersey, the school policy is to keep it from the parents. That’s official policy and the reason it is… I know it is in California, in New York. I’ve heard from parents in New Jersey as well. The reason that that is their policy is the line is that home, it might not be a safe environment for LGBTQ children. That’s what educators have told me. So they actually have a policy of after encouraging young minor children to come out as one of the more exciting gender options, they then fill out forms, except whatever the child says… minor student says their new name is, new gender, they entitle them to use opposite sex bathrooms and whatnot and they will. I have talked to parents who did not know this was going on for a year.
Beverly:
How is that possible? Isn’t it true that parents have to sign off on a child taking aspirin at school, but yet then in certain states, they don’t even know that their child is going by a different name and is using the bathroom that’s opposite than their biological sex? How is that allowed?
Abigail:
Yeah, that’s right. So I would encourage… It’s the most eye-opening part of my investigation was certainly the deep dive I did into the California public school system, because I was able to working with teachers who were willing to bring me things from the Teachers’ Union and whatnot, materials from the Teachers’ Union, I was able to piece together a system that had so completely undermined parents and was working by so many surreptitious means to keep the parents in the dark. And one way that we do that in California is by putting these so-called SOGI curriculum, that sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum. It’s not part of the sex ed curriculum. So the parents are allowed to opt out of the sex ed curriculum, but they put the sexual orientation and gender identity curriculum in something they call the anti-bullying curriculum and no one’s allowed to opt out of anti-bullying. So that’s just one of many means by which the school system really evades parent oversight and even parents finding out.
Beverly:
And of course, this goes much further than just what a child’s name is or what pronoun the child prefers to be called. We’re also talking about medical intervention, whether that’s puberty blockers or whether that’s going under the knife and getting a double mastectomy. How often are we seeing young girls, so under the age of 18, minors who say they have gender dysphoria, they feel that they are the opposite sex and actually move towards medical intervention to make them physically a man?
Abigail:
So this is becoming increasingly common. And in fact, it’s very easy. If these girls were just calling themselves by a new name and using the opposite sex bathroom, I wouldn’t have written the book, but the pressure is on them from the beginning. You say you’re trans, now prove it. Let’s see if you’re really trans. And one of the ways they do that is by pursuing testosterone and surgeries. Now the age of medical consent varies by state. In Oregon, it is 15. In Oregon, it’s very easy to go and begin a course of testosterone in any number of gender clinics, and even have your breasts removed without a therapist note and without parental approval.
Beverly:
Did you talk to any parents whose daughter went through that process and they didn’t even know it was happening?
Abigail:
So I talked to parents whose daughters went through that process. I did not talk to any parents whose daughters went through that process at under 18. Most of the parents I talked to, their daughters were 18 and got the surgery, but they would tell me about other people they know and I interviewed the surgeons themselves. So I’ve interviewed surgeons who removed the healthy breasts of 16 year old girls. So it’s not something that doesn’t exist. It’s out there and these are big money makers and I think we’re only going to see more of it.
Beverly:
Will you talk about the lack of therapy as well? I think most people, even for cosmetic surgery, they have to have some type of psychological evaluation at times, depending on the surgery, depending on how many surgeries they’re asking for, yet there’s no psychological exam for this, it sounds like in most instances. Why is it that medical professionals seem to throw out some of their medical standards that they adhere to for this type of surgery? Is it all about money?
Abigail:
Well, I don’t know that it’s all about money. The activists have been very aggressively and successful at changing the standards in the medical professional organizations so that affirmative care is now the prevailing standard, meaning that doctors, almost every medical professional exam organization has accepted the affirmative care model, meaning that a doctor’s responsibility with this one diagnosis is to agree with the patient’s self-diagnosis. So if you go into a clinic or a doctor and you say you have gender dysphoria, the doctor’s job is effectively to agree with you. And Planned Parenthood is a major distributor of testosterone. You walk in. You effectively self-diagnose. You sign an informed consent form, and you walk out that day with a scheduled three controlled substance.
Beverly:
So, let’s talk about what these drugs can do. We obviously understand what a double mastectomy would do. When girls start taking testosterone, especially if it’s around the age of puberty, could that permanently change their ability to ever have kids, should they grow up and decide that, “No, I no longer feel like a man. I feel like a woman”? Is it possible they just can’t live a normal life anymore at that point?
Abigail:
Absolutely. So testosterone, the insidious thing about testosterone is it has certain good effects. Okay. It suppresses anxiety. It delivers euphoria and it redistributes the girl’s fat. So a girl who goes on testosterone will say she feels great. She’s socially bolder. Her anxiety, which is often her biggest problem, these girls have very high anxiety and high rates of depression. They suddenly feel better than they’ve ever felt before and that’s why they go on it. But unfortunately, it does have all sorts of irreversible harms like the one you mentioned, it can lead to not only vaginal atrophy, but uterine atrophy. It creates high risk of endometrial cancer. Very often a prophylactic hysterectomy will be recommended if they’ve been on it for five years because of the uterine cramping and atrophy and of course, there are all sorts of other cosmetic changes. The facial features get altered, there’s permanent body and facial hair that never goes away in addition to alterations of your voice and private anatomy.
Beverly:
And so, let’s talk about how often these girls who have gender dysphoria, how often as they get older and mature, do they feel more comfortable in their body and feel okay being a female? So what percent of those with gender dysphoria does this linger into adulthood and become their permanent mental state on the issue?
Abigail:
So historically, when we used to leave kids with gender dysphoria alone and not do any major interventions and not call them my girl or the opposite sex name and that sort of thing, over 70% of these kids would outgrow it. This is kids with real gender dysphoria. Okay? Over 70% would outgrow it on their own. Okay. And most of them would become gay adults. Some would become straight adults. Today, these girls who were involved in this hysteria, first of all, they don’t have typical gender dysphoria at all. So unsurprisingly, what we’re seeing is very, very high rates of regrets.
So the numbers are hard to ascertain on just how much regret we’re going to see because this is a new phenomenon, but we’re already seeing, when you look online at groups, social groups of detransitioners, that’s people who medically transitioned, regretted it and then took steps to undo it, really, numbers that are very, very fast growing. So when I wrote the book, there were 7,000 members of this one social media site, where detransitioners were talking to each other and getting advice and whatnot. Within a few months, it was at 13,000. So it went from 7,000 to 13,000, I think four or five months. You’re seeing that very, very large growth in numbers of male or females who regret their medical transitions.
Beverly:
But really the research right now, we don’t know what some of the longterm impacts will be because this is a new phenomenon as you say so we’re going to have to wait a few years to see how many of these young girls deeply regret what they did and there’s not a whole lot they can do about it. I think for those listening to the podcast, something that I think would be helpful for them to know, I know you’re a mom yourself, we have a lot of moms out there, is obviously, they can find out what’s going on at their school. But if your child does come to you and say that they feel that they’re the opposite sex, you were saying that a lot of times, when a child claims that they have gender dysphoria, it’s not real. What should a parent do? How do you determine that? How do you help your child?
Abigail Shrier:
Okay. A few things. One, I would like to say that they won’t know what’s going on in their own schools. They are very unlikely to even know. And I really encourage everyone to take a look at the investigation I did in California in the book. And the reason is, is because the school system is pushing this very aggressively there. Certainly in California and elsewhere, the teachers, they’re being trained by activists and the ways that they are deceiving parents are really legion. So even when they provide the curriculum, there’s all kinds of ways they’re supplementing it without the parents having any idea. But what can parents do? First of all, the thing to know is gender dysphoria, we know what it is. It doesn’t come out of nowhere. Okay? If your adolescent suddenly says they’re transgender after having no childhood history, this is something that typically emerged in ages two to four, little, little kids insisting to their moms that they weren’t a boy. They were really a girl and really being profoundly uncomfortable in their biological sex. Okay?
Today we’re seeing bevies of teenage girls who had no childhood history of this suddenly deciding they’re trans. That’s just not typical gender dysphoria at all. So I would say that number one, parents should absolutely approach this type of announcement with a lot of skepticism, either that they really are meant to be trans. And second of all, that they’re right about it. And second of all, that anything medical should be done to secure them or facilitate this gender journey they’re on. There’s a good reason to think that not only are they not really gender dysphoric, but that this will not cure them. And another thing I really recommend to parents is they should absolutely oppose gender ideology in the school system.
There is no reason we can’t show compassion for a transgender child without indoctrinating an entire student population in gender confusion and that’s right now what we’re doing. We’re confusing an entire generation of kids and there’s no reason for parents to put up with that. And another thing I would suggest is really, depending on the age of your daughter, get her off social media. We know it’s causing all kinds of major spikes in depression, suicide, suicidal ideation. It’s really causing terrible anxiety in an entire population, which already feels bad enough. They’re going through puberty. They’re having a hard time and this is just a very cruel mechanism for constant comparison and constantly feeling bad about yourself.
Beverly:
Out of curiosity, how has the transgender community responded to this book? Have they viewed it favorably or has it been mostly negative?
Abigail:
So the surprising thing to me is just how many wonderful transgender adults have reached out to me. And of course, I interviewed many for the book while I was writing it. But the number of people who are transgender adults who’ve reached out to me and reiterated that the activists do not speak for them, that they’ve been horrified and appalled that so many young teenagers have suddenly decided that they are transgender and are able to obtain that based on their self-diagnosis, testosterone that day, these are… I try to say this whenever I get the opportunity, because it wasn’t something I knew before I began this and that is, there are so many wonderful transgender adults out there who are sober and lovely, and they’re not pushing this on children. They are not pushing this on teenagers.
And just because the activists have convinced the world that they speak for every transgender adults doesn’t make it so, and I’ve been really honestly very heartened by the number of transgender adults who’ve reached out to me and really reiterate that they themselves went through all kinds of therapy before they made these major decisions about their bodies and they’re really quite appalled by the fact that that’s no longer necessary at all.
Beverly:
Well, the book is called Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. You can find it anywhere you get your books. Amazon sells that as well, even though Amazon did try to block ads for your book, Abigail, but you prevailed. It is a bestseller nonetheless. Abigail, we so appreciate your work on this and coming on She Thinks today.
Abigail:
Thank you so much.
Beverly:
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