 and welcome to modern day debate. We are a neutral nonpartisan platform welcoming everyone from all walks of life. If you're looking for even more fantastic debates, we are all over the internet including your favorite podcasting platform. So if you enjoy debates, please don't forget to like, follow and subscribe including tonight's debate on Does the Left Ignore D-Trans Folks with our debaters Maddie and Malcolm and Shapeshifter and Cat here to help us find out and if you enjoy what either of them have to say tonight, our guest links are in the description below. You can also tag me in chat at Amy Newman with your question or comment for our Q&A section. Those super chats will get yours sent to the top of the list. With that, I'm going to hand it over to the affirmative side for their 10 minute opening statement. The floor is all yours. When you say affirmative side, can you just repeat like the question? Does the left ignore D-Trans folks? I'll go first. Okay. Hi everyone, my name is Shape. I've been trans identified for 10 years. I had my sex reassignment surgery seven years ago. Six months ago, I came out as D-Trans and started de-transitioning by taking testosterone. Ever since I came out as D-Trans, I've been mostly platformed by right-wingers or people who are leaning more right, which immediately made everyone assume that I sold out to the right, but I actually didn't. I would have loved to talk to somebody on the left, but nobody has approached me except for one outlet that is British and after interviewing me for an hour and a half, they decided not to air it. So that's where it's at. I've also been accused of being a grifter. However, I have not interviewed you. So yeah, I've been also advocating against medical transition of kids under 18. So that's where I'm at. So I'll pass it to Kat. Hi, I'm really thankful to be here today for this. Thank you for having me. My name is Kat and I'm a de-transitioned woman. I identified as trans starting at age 13 years old and I was not affirmed by my parents or my pediatrician or my peers back then. This was, I'm 31 now, so this was in the mid-2000s when I was identifying as trans and coming out as trans and so I ended up transitioning later as an adult. I mostly took testosterone as well as socially transitioning and coming out publicly and unfortunately I suffered some health side effects from the testosterone, which happened very quickly for me. I also was a semi-professional singer prior to transitioning and I didn't realize that the testosterone would cause permanent and detrimental vocal changes. It made it so that it essentially became painful to talk, laugh, sing and I was not able to perform for two years. I recently started performing again, but I have a completely different voice now. And so when I was de-transitioning it became very clear to me the lack of support that there is for de-transitioners in more ways than one. There's a lack of support from medical professionals for one thing. I tried to seek help for my voice and almost no one knew how to work with a de-transition female voice. I was told I could not really change my range at all. I was also gaslit and told there was nothing wrong with my voice when I was literally in pain every day. I've heard from many medical professionals that they just really don't know what to do with de-transitioners, so there's that side of it. The fact that I lost a lot of friends when I de-transitioned, I was rejected by people within the trans community, some friends who were really close to me, and that was tough. And then finally you have of course the media, which is obviously the subject of this debate, but prior to transitioning, I believe that de-transitioning was rare. I believed it could not happen to me, that there was a fraction of a 1% who transitioned, and so just when you type de-transition into Google, first you get left-wing media outlets, like NBC. Here's the title of one, for instance. This is from 2019, which is the year I started transition, and that is media's de-transition narrative is fueling misconceptions trans advocates say. They say the current narrative makes transition regrets seem more common than it is and contributes to misconceptions about transgender people. And then a more recent article, this one's from KQED, it talks about kids' children transitioning and how California is presented as California is a sanctuary state for trans youth coming from other states looking to receive gender-affirming health care. But even within this study, there is a whole paragraph that says there's no solid data on how many kids remain satisfied with medical interventions or feel remorse about gender-affirming transitions. And it talks about the lack of solid evidence about children who transition. And yet the way this article is presented is that it's very positive in terms of, of course, we should let kids transition, this is safe. And so what we've been seeing is just a very one-sided narrative from the left. And like Shapeshifter, I've had mainly right-wing outlets reach out to me despite, you know, I've been a devout Democrat my entire life. I've always voted Democratic. Now I feel more politically homeless just because, you know, some of my views have changed surrounding this. But there's so much on the right I don't agree with. But I think it's important that anyone considering transition hears our stories because de-transition is, it is a growing phenomenon. It is something that can happen. And anyone making a decision like this deserves to know both sides of the story. And it's frankly irresponsible for media outlets to ignore us. So that's kind of a summary on where I stand on the issue. I also wanted to just add I also had a lot of health complications from medical transition. And I do regret my transition, but I also want to put out a message that de-transition in certain cases is not fully possible, especially if you've gone as far as I have, which is I've gotten all the surgeries that I could have gotten. Until today, I'm unable to have sex with my neurovagina, despite multiple revisions. And I have osteoporosis and scalaosis due to lack of hormones in my body for a few years. Thank you. One thing, thank you, Shape. And I also just want to add that this, the left seems to be really glamorizing transition because I think with both of us, there were so many risks, there were so many health risks, and the quality of the science is so much worse than what we were told it was and how it was represented to us. You know, I've brought several, I've brought a lot of citations with me about, you know, some of the science and I'll go more into the flaws and the methodologies and things like that. But what happens is that transition gets glamorized and, you know, I feel like the health risks especially are downplayed and a lot of people are going into this and they don't even find out these health risks until, you know, months, years, sometimes down the road. And, you know, for a lot of people, it's too late. You can't always completely come back from your transition and reverse the effects. I have in a lot of ways, but, you know, like my voice, I've been living with vocal pain now for like two years and I don't know, because I have this unique vocal anatomy, I don't know if that will ever change. And, you know, you hear various health side effects from almost every day transitioner I've spoken with. Yeah, it's my back hurts every day because of a still process. It's very traumatic to be back on testosterone or having my sex drive and not having functional genitals or some kind. And so today, I don't even know what exactly went wrong with my surgery despite being to so many different surgeons. So that's where I'm at. I also believe I am part of Trans Against Groomers. So it's people who transition as adults, but they don't agree that anybody under 18 should be transitioning because you can make a consensual decision to something this series and this lifelong. Right. If we're not allowing children to get tattoos or drink alcohol or join the military, it's, you know, consent laws exist for a reason. And it's because the brain isn't fully developed until the mid 20s, usually. And for neurodivergent people, which a larger percentage of trans identified people are neurodivergent than the general population. And so that that brain maturation can happen even later in life for new neurodivergent people. And also when you have people with severe mental illness as well, regardless of age, you know, if you're in a great deal of mental distress and desperation, it's not necessarily informed consent. And plus, I would even go so far as to say, you know, the science, these interventions are still very experimental compared to other fields of healthcare. And so, you know, anyone going into this, even the doctors themselves don't have a good idea of the science. So yeah, I would dispute the whole concept of informed consent in this context. Yeah, for sure. I agree with what Kat said. I had my surgery at 24, and I was 100% convinced that I was a woman and I will never regret this. But my sexual desires have changed. And now I wish I had my penis back, but no matter what I do, I'm never getting my penis back. And I've talked to a trans man who attempted to get phalloplastin, it failed. And he had to reverse phalloplastin, take new phallus apart and put the skin graft where it came from. So it's just being part of the trans community is just a lot of people are suffering with permanent health damage due to transition and surgery that they regret they've gotten. About one minute. Okay. And a lot of the trans women I know because of testosterone, they don't know they'll be able to have kids and some of them are missing their breasts, they won't be able to breastfeed. Unfortunately, a lot of trans radical activists claim that the surgeries are reversible and a lot of public at this point is convinced that you can just go and get sex change like it's nothing, but that's not the case. You can't. And getting breast implants after double mastectomy is just not the same once all the glands are removed and getting phalloplastin is also not the same as having a naturally born penis, I guess, natural penis. And I think the left is characterizing us as just transphobic. We hate trans people. We're anti trans. And I think that does detransitioners a huge disservice because at the end of the day we're real people who have been hurt by this. And what we are trying to do is make care better for everyone. I think most detransitioners want the best for both the detrans and trans community. We want these people to have the best medical care. We don't want harm to those communities. And yet that is how we're being portrayed by the left. Yes. And I wish I didn't get the bottom surgery because I was not aware that there were actually no studies showing that general surgeries improve mental health at all. In fact, my depression, anxiety and suicidality got worse after the bottom surgery. And with that, I want to thank the affirmative side for their opening statements and we're going to hand it over to the negative side for their up to 10 minute opening statements. The floor is all yours. Cool. I'll start us off. So first of all, I want to say that thank you to both cat and shape for sharing their experiences because it takes a lot of bravery and courage to be open about when you go through something and it doesn't work out, especially when you feel harmed by it. So thank you for sharing your stories. And I do want to say that what you feel maybe that you weren't provided enough information and that if you had been provided enough information, maybe you would have made a different decision in terms of your treatment. I think that's totally valid. And I agree with Kat in that I think it makes sense to make sure that we're providing all that information because regardless of whether you're going through a gender affirming procedure or even a normal procedure like a hip replacement or shoulder surgery, there's always going to be risks. And the best thing we can do to ensure that people are being safe and making the right decision for them and that they are setting themselves up to have the best possible outcome is by giving them that information. Now, to go back to the question at hand, this main is the left ignoring detransitioners. One thing I think that doesn't surprise me is that it's right wing outlets that primarily seem to seek out these stories. However, I don't know if the rationale for doing so is because they feel that these, you know, oh, but we want to make sure people are being safe. What I seem to see more frequently is that they seek out stories about people who have detransitioned as a way to invalidate and diminish the existence of trans identities overall. And using that as evidence of why these trans identities are not valid or shouldn't be taken seriously. And that I think is where we find the biggest problem. Isn't that these are stories that aren't worth telling because they absolutely are, but when they're weaponized to then attack other people, people who are marginalized and suffering and being targeted right now, that is I think where the issue is. And I think I'll end with this and then I'll pass this over to Malcolm. But I think in all cases, care needs to be individualized. And one of the good things, at least I'm also based in California about the care that's offered here is that it is a multi-prong process where at the crux of the individual's care, the main motivator or desired outcome is reducing gender dysmorphia. If gender dysmorphia is there, that may include medical intervention that may not. But at the end of the day, it's ensuring that the person of sound mind is not suffering unnecessarily because of their identity and making sure that all the care that's being given to them is with their best interest at heart and mitigating any sort of risks. So I'm looking forward to the rest of this discussion. Malcolm, you can go ahead. All right. I think if we're asking the question, does the left ignore D-trans folks? I think that in some scenarios you could say yes, but I would argue that the right does a similar thing. I know that a lot of people who are platformed as D-transitioners, it's usually by right-wing people. But if we're looking at the kind of things that we want to see D-transitioners have access to, these are going to be things like support, like reconstructive surgery, community, all of these things. I know that Shapeshifter had mentioned, I think it was Shapeshifter and Kat also mentioned kind of being politically homeless where you kind of turned against this community and they rejected you. And I think that that's fucked up and that's been a criticism that I've had of the trans community for a long time is that there needs to be a little bit more openness and flexibility in how we support people, even if they aren't doing the things that we would want for ourselves. So I think in a way the left does ignore D-trans people, but I think that the people that the left are ignoring specifically are people that will say because I transitioned and it wasn't right for me, I think that we should either have harder to access transition or we shouldn't let anybody transition at all. And I've kind of been different on that. I think that if that's something that people choose not to platform, I think that's okay. There were a few things that I wanted to tag on to the end that Kat had brought up as far as D-transitioning statistics. When we're talking about D-transition itself as a whole, D-transition within the community is really rare. If we look at this, I can drop this in the chat here in a second. And if we look at like a WPATH survey that was done in 2018, we can see that like it's like 0.1% of people who medically transition regret and then D-transition. And additionally, if we're looking at children who access medical care, either they go on peer rebloggers or they identify as trans with the Dutch cohort that was just done in 2022, we see that they persist into their identity like 98% of the time, I think is the number off of that one. And I can drop both of those in the chat. I'm really interested in where this conversation is going to go because I think that there are valid concerns that D-transitioners bring to the table, like the idea of being alienated from a community because you're not in line with what they expect you to do, which I think is obviously inappropriate. The lack of resources, I know that Kat had mentioned a little bit like the inaccessibility about working with your voice, shapeshifter. I know that you've mentioned many times that you've had issues getting reconstructive surgery or accessing hormones in the opposite direction, so to speak. And I think that those are things that are kind of more of an issue than which voices like certain platforms are selectively deciding to platform. I know obviously that's the topic of the debate, but I think that that's like a little bit more important. So I'm excited to talk about that for sure. And I appreciate everybody and the invite, of course, as per use. Thank you so very much, all four of you, for your opening statement. And I'm going to remind everyone, please keep on tagging me at Amy Newman with your questions for the Q&A as well as sending in any super chats that will send yours right to the front of the queue. However, with that I'm now going to hand it over to all four of you for the up to 50 minutes of open discussion. The floor is all yours. I just wanted to talk more about my medical history because I was, believe it or not, it's going to sound like unbelievable, but nobody actually told me that I was supposed to be on some kind of hormone right after the bottom surgery. I know the sounds ridiculous, but nobody has. Not people who gave me hormones first time in my life. Not all the surgeons that did revisions on me over the years, because every time you go for a revision, you have to list the drugs you're on. And I told them like I'm not an estrogen because I was young and dumb. And I saw an estrogen was just like for titties and ass. And I was like, I look feminine enough. I don't want to gain weight because I always struggle with this body dysmorphia and weight gain. So I was literally living with a medical doctor who is literally still a doctor, still has his own plastic surgery practice in Florida. He knew I wasn't taking estrogen. I was living with this person for two years. He knew I wasn't taking any kind of hormone. So yeah, nobody told me it's not just for titties and ass. It's for your bone health. It's for your mental health. It wasn't up until I started having back pains. And I didn't know what it was. I ended up having a bone scan. And I realized like I had osteoporosis also went to chiropractor who like send me to x-rays and I had scalaosis as well. That's when I realized I had bone density loss because of lack of hormones in my body. Moreover, I had not only like I was never able to have sex the way I wanted after sacrificing my healthy genitals. I literally like was not even aware that I should to be able to like even have interest in sex and be able to achieve any kind of orgasm. I needed to have some testosterone in my body. And I did not know that up until I started de-transitioning recently and taking testosterone. That's when I finally got some kind of interest, you know, in being able in having sex or like masturbating. And I just have to put this outside, you know, for people to know. And like I literally could have at least been having like more orgasms had I known that I needed some testosterone because testosterone is oftentimes demonized and I'm to have community as some things that like poisoned your body and put just like male puberty that destroyed you and made you look like a man. But it's needed for some for health benefits and also to have sex, right? You know, what's the point of looking like a beautiful woman when you have no interest in any kind of intimacy others and cuddling, you know, and I am a homosexual transsexual. So like I am attracted to men. And for me, like I wanted vaginal depth. I wanted to have sex, right? And nobody told me any of this. I was so scared of testosterone, you know, and I also struggled for all this years was brain fog, lasargy, I had no energy. My anxiety has been through zero because I was just a castrated man. I couldn't even be in the room alone without getting like panic attacks. Now I got my testosterone back at least I can travel and be a hotel room by myself if I need to before I couldn't even do that without being apart from my cats, which just gave me anxiety. So I didn't know that, you know, nobody explained anything to me. I also want to mention that when I started taking estrogen, my mental health actually declined. And I believe estrogen and use bottom dysphoria in my case, because before taking estrogen, I was fine with my penis. But after I started taking estrogen, I became really dysphoric. I didn't want people like seeing my penis or touching it. So I believe like, and my therapist saw that I was just like in a wrong body. And I also made myself believe that I needed to have bottom surgery to feel complete, you know, but in fact, my mental health declined since and I regret my medical transition, I even regret the top surgery because I have a lump in my breast and eventually I'll have to remove my implants anyway. But I'll never get back my original body right now. Once I do it, I'm going to look like F2M. I'm going to have like scars and yeah, I completely regret it. And they're also super heavy and they're already hurting my back. That's already weak. Yeah, I want to also point out and because thank you for sharing all that. And I'm really sorry that that was your experience because especially when you seek the help of medical professionals, of course, you always think, no, but like they are medical professionals, they have my best interest at heart. I'm seeking their guidance because they're experts in this. And so to do that and then have it turn out so poorly is awful. And no one deserves to go through that. I do want to point out another something that's interesting that I noticed a parallel is for women who take birth control a lot of times. So some of the side effects that you mentioned where feeling depressed or in some cases like the reason I can't do hormonal birth control is because I no longer have control over my emotional responses or at least that's how it felt. And I've had that before, but I knew that that was a risk going into it where it's like, okay, no to be on the lookout for these potential side effects. And then we can reassess whether or not this treatment is right for you. And then I ultimately went with the copper IUD because the one with hormones, bad idea. My body was not responding well to that. So I guess I have a question for you then shape if do you think if had you been given this information ahead of time knowing the side effects or being briefed, do you think that would have changed your decision making process? Just like other I mean, I knew was that was estrogen I was going to gain weight and get more emotional like that's obviously like obvious side effects, just like, you know, a lot of D trans women get accused like how the hell did you not know that your voice was going to get deeper. I think like other D trans people and some trans people I have other comorbidities and one of them is OCD. So the minute I saw that was trans, I got so obsessed with transition and plus that narrative that if you don't transition, you're going to be at a higher risk of suicide. And for somebody who struggled with mental health my whole life. To me, I was like, okay, whatever, I'll be like, actually, here's what happened. I was literally on estrogen just for a year in my life, because I was told that I needed to be a year to get maximum breast growth before top surgery. That's what I was told. And that's what I was on estrogen for years. And when I went off, you know, and I but I think it permanently did affect the way I saw it and having estrogen in my body kind of confused me about my biological reality. I went from being a proud trans woman and being fine with my penis to being full on convinced that I was like a real full on woman and there is no difference between me and biological woman that pushed me into like bottom surgery. I feel like, yes, I knew about those side effects like just gaining weight and all that. But I guess nobody told me that you could feel actually more depressed because I felt like as a trans woman taking estrogen should have made me more happy because from what I've read online, everybody was like, oh, my God, I'm on a final on the right hormone. And I feel so euphoric. But for me, actually, looking back, it went down the hill. And I just was so obsessed with a final goal that I was like, I just need to complete my transition and live as a woman and then things will be better. That maybe I was kind of ignoring red flags, but also like I had mental health professionals that probably could have maybe clocked that maybe some of my increased mental health problems could be due to estrogen and me being just a dude who was getting castrated. Or like, it sounds like you were sorry for interrupting, but that is really helpful. Stop being transphobic and speaking of trans people, this is first. That maddie. But I think it sounds like though, and I think you alluded to it towards the end how if you were in treatment for mental health and I've been in treatment since I was a teenager, so I understand and it sounds like maybe if had there been someone who you could have seen that was more specialized in care, so had experience with people who are struggling with like gender identity or gender dysmorphia and we're more familiar with how that doesn't just have like it has effects on your mental health, but also once you start transitioning, there's another list of hurdles to know when to jump over to avoid or things to just be mindful of. I just want to clarify like I always struggled with mental health and I grew up in a civil war country where mental health is not something that's addressed unless you're like full on like crazy quote unquote to the point that you can't function in society. So the first mental health I ever received was to get surgeries for I mean lettuce for the surgery that's like the sad part I was prescribed hormones at Fenway Health which is one of the largest LGBTQ I guess plus whatever hospitals you know and those people were supposed to be experienced with trans care and I think that's where the problem lies it was more of an accident hospital and I think we're going to affirm it no matter what instead of like looking at other issues that could have made me feel like I was supposed to be a woman like I was internalizing a lot of homophobia I had OCD and borderline personality disorder also things I actually didn't know I had till later till after I had the surgery so somehow they never like consult me and pointed out that I could have other issues I also actually have body dysmorphia you keep on saying gender dysmorphia oh I'm sorry it's a new word you invented I guess just being transphobic I'm sorry now I was diagnosed with gender identity disorder because I'm old I guess so back then it was not gender dysphoria was gender identity disorder but I realized actually this year when I went to a different therapist I was not a gender therapist because I told her like no matter what surgeries I got I still felt ugly and I felt uncomfortable in my body and despite like people say oh you're gorgeous you're beautiful like I could only focus on stars on my body on my like new vagina and all that and she told me you have body dysmorphia and then things clicked like I had abusive childhood I had sexual trauma and I did more research and I definitely like no matter how much I modified body my body like that's feeling of not feeling right never went away so now I kind of still unpacking everything that happened to me you know and I realized I have all those other mental issues that created dysphoria you know and I think that's where I would like to promote moving forward when I definitely like people say that I'm transphobic and all that but like people are definitely struggling with dysphoria but I think the first line when people come to therapists or voice concerns about dysphoria we need to unpack like what exactly are they dysphoric about is that having certain type of hair is then is that something else you know is that something that could be fixed before like radical medical intervention such as like drugs and surgeries and I feel like I wish I was shown more like mental health help more than like just sessions to get the letters for the surgery because that's how it went down for me you know it was mental health is something I struggled with I only went to therapists when it was time to get letters for the surgery and that was the only time I went to therapists and then I saw therapists a few times after the surgery and that's it and then recently I went to therapy again once I was like super suicidal and decided to try to do transition and you know all right I'm coming in for blood okay because I I love the the sharing of personal experiences I know that that's super helpful but I'm here for blood okay I want I want tears I want everybody to be in tears when we leave so when you guys are talking specifically about detransitioners being like ignored by the left what does that mean like what would you like to see in lieu of what's happening right now I mean we've seen Tucker Carlson platform a few detransitioners we haven't seen Rachel Meadow talk to any detransitioners you know I would love to talk to Rachel Meadow or not her but like I mean her or somebody else on the left honestly I'm new to politics when I was convinced I was a woman I was I was playing a stereotype you know I was like not into politics not into finance now I'm kind of like learning like what's left what's right like again I'm politically homeless but I would love to share my story with left audience because we've been demonized as anti-chance and some people sometimes say or you're just a cis girl who is who is just a right winger like I'm not I wasn't born a woman and I'm not a full on right finger I'm like center right I guess at this point so if it's just the idea of people who are like platforming detrans voices so like your example with Tucker Carlson or like some right-wing media will do this what do you say in response to like that they're that the left in general like CNN MSNBC all this other stuff they don't really platform trans people in general it's kind of like a very specific niche in conservative media and do you feel like that does more damage because from my perspective when you look at it a lot of these people like don't actually give a shit about detrans people or detrans issues or offering them support or community they want to take detrans people and make an example out of them and say this is why we should be scared of transness right I agree with you I mean there is definitely some people who are like full on transphobic but there's definitely some people who are just concerned and honestly when I was receiving medical care I was I thought I was in good hands because I thought I am in America like people in white clothes know what the hell they're doing and honestly I never wanted this when people say like oh I'm a grifter and I'm doing this for attention like I much rather have my health back you know I wish I never went down this route and I will talk to anybody who will talk to me and raise awareness and hopefully at least one person who needs to hear it will hear it and make their decision and yes I am worried that sometimes I'm aligning with the wrong people but that's what it came down to because when I have videos from four years ago talking about my complications and nobody cared I feel betrayed and gaslighted by trans community because they kept on telling me that I was just one percent like fluke regret rating all like from complications and just regret but so many people reached out to me in privacy and told me about their complications there are people with colostomy backs there are people who are numb from the waist down from bottom surgery there are people who can't pee properly they have to dilate their urethra but guess what none of the surgeons or therapists who gave me letters they never were checked on me they have no idea maybe I killed myself am I happy nobody ever called me and not send me a single email so we're not there's no follow-up you know I feel like trans people deserve better prayers I think a lot of people just really getting surgery is now at 18-19 thinking that they're just going to go have one surgery and walk away with a functional vagina or a penis but that's not how it works I think people are being lied to you know and honestly they should be aware that honestly there's really no study showing that bottom surgery helps anybody's mental health in fact there's studies showing the opposite that suicidality went up compared to general population and people should well the Swedish study actually shows the opposite the Swedish study specifically states that post-sex reassignment surgery suicidality is decreased it isn't decreased to like cis counterparts but is decreased significantly with with studies like I saw it's the shoulder there's a lot I would like to touch on here so I think that so shape and I both had cases of could you just tell me the title of this I'm on my phone as a camera so I can I can search on my computer but what's the title of the study it's the it's the big Swedish one is the long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery it's the Swedish study and I'm also going to drop this in the chat as well because the author of this study has gone and done multiple AMAs on various different platforms because everybody is literate and can't read and she's come out and said specifically that within this study suicidality is decreased but it doesn't decrease to like cis levels right where it's like suicidality for trans people is here free up trans people suicidality for post-op trans people is here and then suicidality for cis people is here there's still a significant decrease in suicidal ideation but it doesn't match like cis like this is controls but it but it's better it shows improvement compared to trans counterparts who didn't had not undergone surgery yet yes okay well while I'm kind of looking into just since we're in sweden sweden was one of the first countries and in general northern europe that's considered to be open minded countries there were one of the forefront countries to start like doing surgeries and helping trans people with medical transition and I remember my surgeon who did my first surgery he's one of the oldest surgeons in the country who still does the surgery is Dr. Sherman leas he always showed up how he trained in sweden and all that and sweden and Finland are now backtracking on a lot of like medicalization of kids and all that so like and we're kind of still behind I feel like and they have some studies I think me and cat saw that when we were at a conference together at a hearing together they showed that a lot of suicidology goes like up and after 10 years after transition yeah so I'm not interpreting like I'm reading the discussion for this study right now and mortality from suicide was strikingly high among sex reassigned persons also after adjustment for prior psychiatric morbidity in line with this sexist reassigned persons were at increased risk for suicide attempts um yeah so if you I don't know if can I send this to you on twitter I don't know if you have access to the chat assignment alleviates gender dysphoria there is a need to identify and treat co-occurring psych psychiatric morbidity and transsexual persons not only before but after secondary assignment so do you want me to I can send these to you on on twitter if you want to because the author of this study has come out and said specifically that the findings interpret that post op trans people have a lower suicidality than pre op people um it's just doesn't meet the threshold of like the cis control um I can send them to you on the like the the discussion pieces that she's done after the fact on twitter um I put them in the chat on here but if you're on your phone I don't know if you um and I just want to say if you put them on twitter I will also make sure that the links go into the uh our chat yeah I'll put them in there in the group chat really quick and both surgery and hormonal therapy alleviates gender dysphoria it is apparently not sufficient to remedy the high rates of morbidity and mortality found among transsexual persons so like I just said the suicidality is still elevated but it's not it's lower than people who are pre-op it's still like there it means that like just by the the by being identifying as trans whether or not you've gone through any sort of medical transition suicidality is is higher um than their cis counterparts I think um a lot of the studies show that that is mostly correlated to pressures our stigmas um even even least of that men's transition studies echoes the same thing where a lot of it is societal pressures but if we're talking specifically about the uh the Swedish study it's like the suicidality is lower than non-transitioning trans people but it's still higher than cis controls and that's to be expected with like a marginal ice group and I'm sure that if you looked into it to detransition people have like extremely high um rate for suicidality as well it's not just because they're detransits because a lot of the the things that come along with it right like complications or dissatisfaction or dysmorphia or whatever it's not just like they got surgery they're not going to kill themselves they did get surgery they are going to kill themselves it's it's a little bit different right there ever cross your mind that maybe some people when it comes to the detransitioners the major reason people detransition is because of social influence through social pressure um that sort of thing so that survey that that data comes from was a survey of a population that still identifies as trans and there's been two surveys um one came out in or sorry both were from 2021 one was by Ellie Vandenbusch um and the other one was Lisa Litman and that these were surveys of specifically detransitioners and external pressures in both studies was one of the rarest reasons for detransitioning and i'm looking at the least that's not true at all now the most treatment endorsed reason for wanting to transition were wanting to be perceived as targeted gender um more than a third of the studies like you did with yours because yeah so i i just i had it right i just said 2021 and i'm looking at it right now i'm looking at another um and this is from 2021 and i know um shape you had mentioned um Fenway this was a study conducted by Fenway health um and what I found was that um the main reasons the most common reason cited for detransition was pressure from a parent at 35.5 percent um at 32 percent it was pressure from their community or societal stigma um and then 20 this is this is um for those who had detransition so people who no longer identify as trans um and that they were asked why they had chosen to um detransition and these were the reasons that were cited and of all of that um only 2.4 percent of those people who reported post detransition um attributed this to doubt about their gender identity while only 10.4 percent attributed their post detransition to fluctuations in gender identity or desire um and again this is just what the the data is showing and those results are echoed through a number of studies where it seems as though um the main reason for um a lot of these people to detransition is directly correlated with societal. This is currently identified transgender people this is currently identified transgender people who have detransition at some point this is not the same population being surveyed in the Littman study and also in the Vandenberg studies so yeah and the Littman study still cites 38 percent as external pressures. We know from these other studies that the majority of detransitioners in in both studies the vast majority no longer identify as trans so that would have left them out. I'm a little confused sorry just I just want to make sure um I get some clarification so when you say um they're they are not trans or I I guess my assumption was that in the study where they show people they followed um a number of people over the course of a certain set of years and then of that initial um population there was a subset that chose to detransition or you know revert back to identifying as the the gender they were assigned at birth um would that not be classified as well they are no longer trans because they had chosen to detransition I guess I'm just confused on where that difference in like definition is so you're you're pulling from the so it's the one defend my health right 2021 so that polls from the 2015 US transgender survey so this is serving a population of people who said yes to the question do you identify as transgender or gender diverse I think it is um and and so most detransitioners which has been you know obviously more research into this is needed I'm not saying this is 100 percent definitive but so far the two studies on a population who say they are detransitioners um the majority of them do not uh they did not transition because of external pressures they did they detransitioned mostly because they became more 60 percent because they became more comfortable identifying with their birth sex and about half of them because of medical complications so that was in one study um and then the other one uh 70 percent this is from vanden boos 2021 they realized their dysphoria was related to other issues 70 percent and 60 percent were due to health concerns health concerns only 13 percent detransition due to lack of social support um and only 10 percent said it was because of discrimination so and that's that's only people that ideation that's only people that say I do not identify as this it's of people who say they have detransition specifically but and so and so those people whether and that's regardless if they identify as trans or not uh there's just people that have detransition are people who say they have detransition only a small minority still identify as transgender or non-binary the majority um you know go back to living as their birth gender so so the survey from 2015 it was surveying transgender adults so of the people who are still trans identified it makes sense that you know the reason they may have detransitioned at some point was an external factor because they still identify as trans but that's not what we're seeing with uh detransitioners so it's just not an act it's not an accurate characterization of people who detransition and furthermore we don't actually know that transitioning is rare sorry that detransitioning is rare because again um most of the studies that's designed on detransitioning are designed to leave most detransitioners out um because also from the Littman study we know that the majority of detransitioners all less than a quarter actually had reported to their medical provider so most do not go back to the same clinic or medical provider um right and a bunch of those studies just sorry to sorry to barge in but um in a number of those studies one of the issues that a lot of people take with it were that when people did not return to the medical facility or to the doctor the assumption was then made oh they must not be transitioning anymore they must have detransitioned and so they market as that ignoring that there are plenty of reasons why someone may not return to a certain medical facility that don't involve you know oh well they were just going to market as they detransitioned um I know there was a big study in 2013 that's cited pretty frequently um for people who maybe want to put more strict controls on gender affirming care and they cite that study while not maybe not acknowledging or like conveniently ignoring that the way that data was presented wasn't necessarily reflective of um the behavior of those those subjects so just I just wanted to point that out that like that is another issue um in terms of of deriving findings well in the WPATH survey from 2018 had the same thing where they would market if there was no responses yes and even with that the cohort it was like 0.01% of people detransitioned like and I and I've worked in I've worked in marketing for a long time I've conducted studies like this and that's why um methodology and documentation is so critical in these because you can make data kind of say whatever you want if you assign certain values to different behaviors or phenomena that you see happen um whether it's people it's a study where people are simply answering questions or whether it's like a behavioral study um it can skew. I don't know about the study from from 2013 that you're referring I haven't personally seen a study where the methodology was used that if a person didn't follow up with the clinic they were considered detransition I've never seen anything like that um you know I'd be happy to take a look um but so the three largest studies on detransition that exist besides the one from 2015 were done by combing through medical records and only people who had reported detransition were um were considered to have detransition and yes those those detransition rates in these three studies were all less than one percent um however since we know that since you know most detransitioners have said they do not go back to their provider they do not tell the clinic um again that that is leaving out a potentially large percentage of people and so I agree with you that data can be you know interpreted and you know twisted to fit a certain narrative but um the truth is is that you know the research that exists it's simply not it's not strong enough to claim that less than one percent detransition and I included sorry I just want to say I included the stat the link to the study in the the chat here but all right I'm sorry because I'm just on my computer so I I'm not able to go from the chat but oh just put it uh put it on the twitter chat can you get on the twitter chat on your phone yeah I'll I'll I'll share it on the twitter chat uh I just wanted to say uh Dr. Alex Krigelen who is mentioned in this Fenway link he was my therapist forget who was one of the mental health professionals who gave me one of the two letters for the surgery is that kind of forever changed my timeline and not for the better and also I've been trying to reach him and tell him that I regret my transition and I haven't been able to reach him because I'm actually in a different study at Fenway and I've been telling them that I'm detransitioning I've been telling them I have a youtube channel and they've been completely ignoring me actually the honestly I've been trying to reach Dr. Alex Krigelen and tell him like hey like I'm detransitioning like I regret like bottom surgery and I haven't been able to even reach him I wonder all they had to do is just send me an email and see how I'm doing and you know I would have said not so well you know it's weird that they are like doing the studies but they never reached out to me and it's hard for me to reach to him so just putting it out there and Fenway Health is an activist hospital there which I guess can be biased as well you know they want certain type of outcome from their data Maddie would you mind just telling me the name of that study because I I'm not a member of the group chat I asked to be added but I oh shoot yeah so if I could search it really quick that would be great yeah so the name of the study is called um Factors uh well it's kind of a long title um oh that's one from Jack Turbin right um I don't know I don't think that um it's from it's just called Factors Associated with Desistence and Persistence of Childhood Gender Dysphoria a Quantitative Follow-up Study and um Thomas D. Steensma okay okay so yeah in this one we're talking about about adolescents and it's it's a sample of 127 people okay thank you yep no problem um yeah and then so there was another one I was um looking at and I believe this one is um yeah Turbin it's the the Turbin study that you would reference and I know that um a lot of that is pulling from the um I think what you said the national trans survey um and that's where yeah and but there were some interesting findings from that and that was research where um the sample size was just over 17,000 people and that's people who had ever socially transitioned so separate from medical transitioning and it found that 86.9% persisted in their gender identity so like I think you're right in saying that you know it's saying that only 1% don't is is misleading because you're right like there it looks the the truth is that it in this particular case and with other cases that I've seen it's probably closer to about you know 14 to 15 percent um but of those a little just over 2,000 people who reported that they had reverted back to living as the gender that they were assigned at birth um only about 15 percent of that group um said they did so because of internal factors such as questioning their experienced gender um but more often the the rationale given was that because of fear mental health issues or suicide I'm sorry that's part of it so fear mental health issues and suicide attempts and not identifying with the gender and like dissatisfaction um the rest of the report that it was mainly social economic and familial stigma and discrimination that was a primary driving factor but again characterizing those people as detransitioners um it's the population that was being surveyed makes those results not applicable to the majority of people who I wouldn't detransitioners why wouldn't you so even though they've now reverted back to living as the gender with which they were assigned and these are people that um didn't necessarily begin medical transition they had just um had begun social transition what about them um doesn't make them a detransitioner when they had initiated that transition and then and then gone back why wouldn't that 15 percent of the 15 percent who you know did identify as trans and now have you know returned to living as their birth sex I mean it's a miracle that any of them even appeared at all because in a sample that you know the survey is sent out and it's and it says you know are do you identify as transgender and or you know gender divert and so if a survey like that goes out you know most the majority of detransitioners are going to steer clear of that um you know they they no longer identify that way and a lot of us have been harmed by gender care and you know a lot of us feel that socially transitioning and just embracing the ideology at all was harmful to us psychologically and so you know um and you know also based on the the studies of specifically detransitioners uh so anyway that that is a different population than a population of detransitioners so you know while it you know maybe you told the study a population that is trans identified for other reasons um it's it's not an accurate characterization of detransitioners it's it's two completely different two populations do you have any data sorry go for it Malcolm I was going to say you can make the same argument for the litmus study because you just snowball sampling on like rd trans closed facebook groups on tumblr twitter reddit all this other stuff you could say the same thing that we're going to see like this massive selection bias just like you saw with the rogd study where it was snowball sampling from like fourth wave now so like it's I understand where you're coming from where like the nitty gritty of this is somewhat important like where are these samples coming from like are they representative of the target population that we're looking to sample but the reality is is that the studies that are going to be the most reliable are ones that are done by servers uh or uh what's the word I'm looking for fuck providers offering that service like those surveys are going to be the ones that are the most reliable because like Maddie said in a lot of these what they're doing is if they are if they're not following up they're checking off the box that says oh well this person probably changed their mind and if we look at uh physician surveys those are going to be the most accurate because we're not snowball sampling out of like specifically ideologically charged groups I would be just as skeptical if we did like you know a study that was like how happy are you with like your bottom surgery results but we only snowball sampled like pro bottom surgery groups are like bottom surgery is amazing bottom surgery is so much fun and it's free and it changed my life for the better I would have the same kind of critiques and so if we look at things like the litman study we're also having those issues which is why I always defer back to the w path survey that was done where they survey providers because regardless of what we're talking about if we're snowball sampling on the internet we're going to have a big issue with our biases with our populations and I'm sorry sorry shape I just want to say something really quick so the both detransitioners that are here today would not qualify for inclusion in in the 2015 trends and transgender I'm not I'm not talking about that one I'm not talking about that one I'm talking about the w path survey that was done in 2018 in 2018 um but doesn't that draw I think we just established that draws from the same population though it draw it was a physician survey so they sent out surveys to providers that perform gender affirming care including surgeries and hormones and they surveyed have you ever encountered a patient that has regret um what was the reason for that reported regret um did they uh no longer identify as trans was it because of medical complications or anything like that and it's the reported survey from providers that provide that care it's not um from the people who are receiving the care it's from the providers that offer that care well I would you know given some of the recommendations that w path puts forward as part of their guidelines such as unix and uh performing surgeries on children I would be skeptical you're just going to hand wave them asking providers to offer this service you're just going to hand wave that because they wrote a standard of care that you don't like I'm reading something right now I can't it's hard for me to you know to look at the the details of the methodology while being present for this debate I you know I will look into it um however you know I I don't believe that that isn't an unbiased or as you're suggesting but um I'd like to hear uh shape what did you have to say it's back to double your past the president of Marcy Bowers who has a private clinic and has been making millions of dollars for years from trans surgeries and I just want everyone to know that Marcy Bowers literally officially state is that all the kids have been blocked out on tenor stage two uh M2Fs will never have an orgasm because they never had testosterone in their body so I mean I think that's bullshit I want to yeah that sounds like bullshit I want to see a source from that other Marcy Bowers okay sure for Marcy Bowers absolutely yeah because I could say that I saw a purple alien yesterday and it's like well it's not a purple alien sweetheart I think I've seen it I see too much testosterone okay were you able to share your screen also I like don't have a lot of testosterone and I orgasm just fine reproductive organs are they literally never develop so they will experience sexual dysfunction because you can never develop in order to experience that and there's no down on this if you if you can have if you have data that shows that this is largely like a big problem then otherwise it's anecdotal and while like it sucks if someone experiences that themselves and like I have a lot of sympathy for that because it whenever you have any sort of medical procedure and you experience negative side effects like that sucks it is it sucks but at the same time to then attribute it to saying this um is going to happen to everyone else then it's like no it's anecdotal it's personal it doesn't make it suck less but like let's call it what it is but you're a needle female comparing your experience to a man who has a new vagina it's a completely different story you know saying that you're able to orgasm because females naturally have some testosterone my testicles have been removed I don't think it's a fair comparison I don't have testicles so my testosterone doesn't come from that either okay but your biology is different you're a woman but would you say that that was because you um just weren't like it sounds to me like you were working with doctors who didn't communicate certain things to you they also didn't have you on specific like the the proper um set of hormones and other things like and that sucks like I shape I'm like heart breaks for you because it sucks that you experience that like it it makes me really mad because we do entrust our medical team like whether it's for um gender affirming surgery whether it's like for cardiac care we trust them to have our best interest in at heart and to give us care to make sure that we're being healthy and happy but at the same time like I don't know it's it's like missing the the forest for the trees where in this particular instance it sounds like there was just a lot of missed opportunities to provide information and education so that you could make a truly informed decision um but I would I would hesitate to um identify that as a larger trend well I was again treated at Fenway hospital for you know that's the hospitals I gave me letters for the surgery and gave me hormones you know Fenway house literally and uh surgeons that worked on me are still working on people you know till today uh Dr. Sherman we still have his practice open all all the surgeons have never stopped performing surgeries it's way too lucrative I just send you a youtube video you can just watch first three seconds where Marcy Bowers admits that anybody who had blockers um m2f are not going to have an orgasm so how kids can opt out of ability to orgasm when they never had one I don't think it's fair are you saying that every wait are you saying that like you're she's like every kid who's taken yeah the argument is that every kid that gets that takes uh hormone blockers before or not not not f2ms not f2ms I'm talking about m2s that's the only person that's ever said that is Marcy Bowers and she just says that she doesn't really have anything to stand on it's just like a shapeshifter if you get that link to me into twitter I will get it into the chat here but I also just want to say that we have about 10 more minutes of open discussion for the panel and then we're going to move into the q&a so please keep on sending in those chats and super chats and if you enjoy the debate please don't forget to like follow and subscribe but right back over to you all so um I can definitely um so nearly every detransitioner I've ever talked to express is similar concerns about the quality of care that they received and and going beyond detransitioners something that trans activists often advocated for is called the the informed consent model and uh in your opening statement Maddie uh you you said that in California I believe you said you're based in California and that here really comprehensive care is provided um I guess it depends yeah I did say that and I guess it really does depend on like what I don't know different hospital systems or medical whatever are like different like Sutter health is going to be or Kaiser is going to be different than like Stanford healthcare but overall yeah so I know a detransitioner from Kaiser who's who's currently suing she transitioned prior to the age of 18 and she she's currently um suing her provider at Kaiser um because one thing I hear from I hear over and over again through people who went through Kaiser went through Planned Parenthood especially as a big one um I was affirmed after 30 minutes at Planned Parenthood I was prescribed testosterone on my first appointment which was a telehealth appointment and um so they never met me in person I picked up my preference yeah how old were you I I was in my late 20s um but this is something I hear from like Chloe Cole she was affirmed immediately at age I think 13 and I hear this from parents all the time of um you know either children who are currently trans identified or assisted children that um providers are affirming immediately and you know this is something that the informed and consent model that trans activists encourage um you know that is something they're they're calling for like they're they're calling for there to be fewer barriers for people to access gender care not more and yet you know people are being harmed by this um I think if you know when you have people coming in with comorbidities and a lot of times someone who's suffering uh from severe distress about their body you know a lot of times they tend to have comorbid mental illnesses and you know these people are being affirmed immediately and this is this is something I hear over and over again um so I don't think it's just a you know an unusual rare occurrence like shapeshifter is describing or like I'm describing where the care is not comprehensive it's very much putting people on a conveyor belt towards transitioning and not considering you know a the risks and b you know if this person can truly provide informed consent. So while while I can't answer for specific doctors um handling it differently I can speak to the guidelines and propose process that the folks at the endocrine society recommend for um and this is specifically for um minors who are experiencing um just questioning of their their gender identity and um it's also I need to get into it with the kids though right because nobody here transitioned when they were a kid that's also true yeah yeah because it's about de-transitioning but I will say that like and I I only speak to the the process because it's something um and this is also the um American Academy of Pediatrics but overall they have a pretty set recommendation for um how to address at each stage um a patient who is um considering transitioning and making sure that the care is individualized so that they are properly evaluated and that you know the goal isn't necessarily medical transition it's more like giving them the treatment they need um to align with um how they see themselves to put them in a position for a better mental health outcome or just life outcome in general and for some people that involves medical transition but for a lot of people that social transition is um is enough for getting um some sort of like psychological help counseling um but they have a pretty strict I know I don't want to say strict but like very set um recommended guidelines so it sounds like you if if the question is you know how do we prevent people from making snap decisions um would you say that implementing stricter like guidelines for that care or like stricter like protocols is what would that be would you think that would be like a more desirable outcome or is when you're gatekeeping as soon as possible because a lot of people that seems their chance are not trained and they're not going to benefit from the surgeries you know they're going to have their body permanently altered you know and um but for children you know because because I mean I don't think anyone under 18 can consent to any of this you know children get um do you have a problem with cis children getting hormone treatments or SSRIs or stimulants I mean I wasn't sure I fucked up my house so yeah SSRIs will fuck you up real hard oh team SSRIs right here what's up dude that benzo induced mania is fucking wicked benzos are a whole different animal benzos are scary it's like it's fucking scary that they give like minors a well-futured trial too but that's what I guess I ask you and they're still you know they still have risks but with puberty blockers for gender dysphoria there's never been any clinical trials and and furthermore this is a you know this is a uh this is altering the body to treat mental illness and this isn't this isn't the type of care that we use to treat but we don't use body modification treatment for anorexia reform that's why sorry sorry no I want stop silencing trans people matty stay in your lane oh my god so the thing two things the first thing is that we know what lupron does to the body it doesn't magically have a different effect because we're using it in trans kids hormone blockers have been used for decades in cis kids to treat precocious puberty it's been close to 40 years now we do we do have a good we have can I finish please thank you we have a decent body of work as to like what these do to the body and we're pretty aware of it so there are side effects and there are risks to every medication absolutely that's unquestionable but to pretend that it magically does something different in trans kids versus cis kids is not true second of all the reason that we don't treat anorexia by giving people liposuction and like telling them the you know binge and purge every single day and only eat like two almonds for lunch is because it's a dysmorphic disorder when you you can give an anorexic person all of the interventions in the world they can have zero percent body fat they could literally be a walking skeleton and when they see themselves they still have this warp perception of themselves there is no tangible end to what this is right they have a distorted view of reality dysphoria isn't a distorted view of reality it's accepting reality and then wanting to change it or choosing to change it right like I have huge juicy double these and I don't want huge juicy double these anymore so I'm going to get them removed that's different than being like oh my god I'm a hundred pounds but I'm still like this fat fucking cow and it's disgusting I shouldn't eat anything there are two totally different things that are not comparable at all well believing that you are a man if you're a woman or if you're you know if you're a child believing you're a boy when you're a girl I would say that's an illusion you know I mean I think it's like no it's about the visual perception it's about the visual perception because you can make an anorexic person be skin and bones and they'll still look in the mirror and see a fat cow you can you can have somebody who's dysphoric who looks in the mirror and acknowledges like yes I got a gorilla grip juicy pussy and like huge fucking gizongas but I don't want that it's the acknowledging of reality and wanting to change it it's dysphoric it's dysmorphic when you look at it and it's not a correct representation of what you visually see right um also like what we talk about I mean the hormone treatments are one thing because those are things that have been used in cis minors for a long time for a variety of mental conditions but um there's also so recently I read this article about a 14 year old boy who because of a hormone it's like in this innate condition he had he grew boobs cisgender boy who identified as as a male who grew boobs and he ended up getting surgery to remove them because they made him self-conscious and were a product of this like unfortunate condition that he was then getting treatment for but like because he was going to school he was like feeling really insecure that he was a cisgendered man who had had tits and he got them removed but I don't see people up in arms about him as a cis child getting gender affirming care in the same way I see people get up in arms about trans kids getting gender affirming care it just feels like it's a moving goalpost in that case it's healthy children getting cosmetic medical interventions you know precocious puberty like we can have a discussion about that that that can cause issues later so do you not think you should have been able to get that surgery no I don't think you should because men can have boobs sorry go ahead shape I'm sorry interrupt first of all when I went to puberty I also had small tds and I don't know until today I wanted to get tested for intersex conditions but it's apparently insurance doesn't cover it imagine it covers all other things but I can't get tested for dsd conditions and men can have breasts I date chubby guys they have breasts I mean no that child should not have gyneomasty is different it's like actual like d cups like literal tits like because bizangas buzz on iron I think we should normalize man high small boobs I don't know if times we'll get in problem 60 years I am actually going to now uh separate but give each of you the chance to just summarize your position as well as tell everyone out there what you got going on in the world or the interwebs uh this is right before we get into the q&a so please keep on sending in those questions it really has been a great debate so I want to thank all four of our interlocutors but either way who would ever would like to go first the floor is yours can I go first I can go to the bathroom can I go first I go to the bathroom I'll be really quick I just really have to go to the bathroom yeah I've heard of one woman take cheese I have to peel for him it's not true I well who was that today that said that testosterone made them pee their pants that's a really weird side effect I've never heard of that one before but I guess it's coming well it is a coming from me it's coming for me I haven't ever pissed my pants but who knows the future is bright and long um so uh I'm welcome god damn it Malcolm on everything I'm a trans guy talk about trans stuff as a trans guy um I also have a decent amount of uh content talking to detransitioners and talking about detransition uh topics so I would like to offer this opportunity to cat and shape both if they ever wanted to talk um I'm not nearly as spicy unlike what I want conversations this is supposed to be a debate so you know we were here for blood I wanted to bring a little blood so um that that is open if that's something that you guys would like to do in the future no no issues um my kind of final thing is I think that it's important to realize that um there are side effects and risks to every kind of medical procedure that we kind of undergo right um and some things don't work for some people there are certain SSRIs that don't work for some people like well Beatron was horrible for me but I didn't know for a lot of people well Beatron was great um the same way that uh transition has been really good for me and I'm really happy with my transition and maybe for cat and shape they don't feel the same way um but that doesn't mean that we just like pull the plug on that treatment just because there are people that are dissatisfied right I think that's kind of like a uh an insane way to approach it and if we're talking about um the left ignoring detransitioners I agree 100% with cat and with shape that there is a really big problem with the way that we abandon detrans people because they're not pursuing transition the way that we want to and I think that that's something that we need to work on for sure as leftists or people on the left or trans people or whatever group you're in because like detrans people are that are basically in the same boat right like just trying to be comfortable with themselves be happy with their body they need access to resources they need community they deserve to be able to talk about their stories right maybe I disagree with some of it and that's fine but that doesn't mean that they don't have a right to talk about their experiences and their stories and I think that we can do better in facilitating healthy relationships with detrans people that just because you know a cat or shape don't aren't transitioning anymore or they don't identify as trans anymore that doesn't mean it's just like fuck you get out of the community you have to burn every bridge that you've ever had I think that that's ridiculous and I think that we could be um we could be better about that and be kinder to each other about that so thank you that's all that's all I got all right I'll be back guys okay thank you so very much and whoever is next no vibe okay I guess I'll go um I still don't build I feel like if adults want to modify their bodies and want to achieve certain look so you have a right to but I don't think it's fair for kids to reserve fertility and their health for a certain look and I still believe kids under 18 should not be transitioning I believe nobody should be getting genital surgeries under 25 because it takes people time to mature and realize who they are sexuality can change sometimes you feel like you don't need certain body part but then you may want it later on and I feel like data on both sides are riddled with flaws and riddled with biases but you cannot hide a body count and I feel like these transitions are the body count I do feel like curing affirmation only model has a lot of flaws they should be more pushbacks they should be more mental health exploration before being people are allowed to have permanent body modification especially genital surgery and in time every single very builds thank you thank you so very much welcome and shapeshifter and who's having it I guess I'll go next um so I'm cat I thought uh this discussion did get a little bit heated at um at one point and you know I apologize for uh you know if I was a little over the top at that part I just I'm really passionate about the science because I do have a background in molecular biology um and so looking at the science and actually reading through these studies and the methodologies has been you know a big part of why I hold some of the positions that I do and the truth is is that in medicine it's never safe until proven unsafe it's it's always unsafe until proven safe um or in most cases I mean you know there's there's been lobotomies there's been some other things uh philotomide things like that but you know the vast majority of time the vast majority of the time to recommend invasive treatments you you have to have extremely strong evidence for those treatments and that is just simply not the case in trans healthcare I do think um just the studies in general um you know even the studies on detransitioners we need better quality data and I think we have surged ahead with performing experimental procedures on people and um prescribing hormonal prescribing hormones that are actually known to be detrimental so so this it's not the same level as like a side effect of a drug um it's it's the side effect is the effect so we already know from studies on like female body builders for instance or men with naturally high estrogen populations like that we already know that you know high amounts of these substances can cause cancer it can cause diabetes it can cause stroke um heart attack things like that so so we already know these substances are dangerous and so um you know I I do believe in you know in freedom and I I I understand the the urge to transition and you know wanting to change your body to make you feel more comfortable and I you know I have the utmost um empathy for that actually but I I do think that these surgeons and doctors are violating the Hippocratic Oath by prescribing these treatments um for in essentially every case but especially under 18s because again children you know if they cannot consent to drinking alcohol having a tattoo um they cannot make a decision about their fertility or their brain health or their bone health I mean there's already evidence um that that these medicaid the puberty blockers in particular are causing osteoporosis so so that's where I stand on the whole thing once again I have immense compassion for anyone who identifies as trans um or you know is feeling just gender dysphoria discomfort in their own body I I empathize greatly with that and you know I really wish them the best and I would like to see other options for treating gender dysphoria being studied okay um yeah so hi I'm I'm Maddie Cakes um and thank you again um I know Kat said it did get a little spicy I feel like this has been one of the most like respectful debates I've been a part of so um like while it did get spicy like I I actually thought that the discussions that we were having while both sides feel really strongly clearly um I I thought it was really productive and I enjoyed it and so I want to thank both of you as well um for being so open to not only like engaging with us but also sharing your your own side of the story because one thing I think we can all agree on and Malcolm touched on this um in in his closing that I I do think that the community whether um someone is trans whether they are are an ally um we need to be more accepting of people who for whatever reason have gone through a detransition um and accept that that is that's a valid um identity that's a valid decision to have been made um and and be open to those stories and your experiences um because I don't want there to be a vacuum where the only people that are um willing to to amplify your stories are these these right wing outlets who may have nefarious um intent for why they want to highlight certain stories over others because again your experience is valid um at the end of the day I think you know I I won't really touch on the um transitioning as a minor um because that's like a different debate that I unfortunately missed two weeks ago because I got the flu um but what I'm going to say for this specific topic which is um whether the left ignores detransitioners um I guess where I want to end this is that I I don't if we are I don't want to and I want to rectify it and have those conversations and engaging um in a forum like this I think is really helpful um Malcolm also had alluded to that there's there's risks with any um with any medication um you want to talk about losing orgasms um SSRIs are a real bitch when it comes to impacting your sex drive um I have been on Lexapro for a while I had been on um Stratera led or you know Paxol back in the day so it's about finding the right balance for you and um luckily even though there are certain side effects the medications I take um that affect things like sex drive I was informed by my doctor about those potential side effects ahead of time I was able to make that fully informed decision on whether or not I wanted to pursue a specific treatment um and I think that is a it shouldn't be a luxury it just should be available to everyone everyone should get all the information they can so they can make the decision for them um and and that's where I hope I'll leave things um but again if if you thought this was like a super spicy debate um don't watch any of the other debates I've been on because you will be horrified so thank you for making this uh so great that's right I want to thank all four of our interlocutors and Maddie Malcolm shapeshifter and Kat and remind everyone that their links are in the description below with that we are going to move over to our q and a section please keep on sending them in as well as your amazing super chats like four five dollars from arcade outpost these studies are canonized by biased ideological activist in social science sciences trust the study is as reliable as trust the church in the 1700s based there is actually flat and bigfoot's real fucking based what a king and the universe actually revolves around the moon I think the sun's flat too actually I'm a flat sun that makes it I'm a flat sunner and with that we're actually going to move on to our questions I'm going to keep on looking for those to tag me but also we have a question from Chris G could you ask Kat to try and specify who she takes issue with instead of people who generally vote them um so I actually have voted them in the past um and not and actually that's a good point not all people on the left um you know support gender identity ideology um so you know it is specifically people I mean I I'd say it's it's specifically people on the left who are supporting the most radical of trans ideology which is uh you know trying to eliminate single sex spaces putting male rapists in women's prisons allowing you know children at age 12 or younger to start puberty blockers and double mastectomies at age 13 like that people promoting that on the left and it is not everyone on the left in fact I I'm actually struck by the fact that um most people on the left don't even know these things are happening um like they're they're really shocked when I tell them a how quickly I was affirmed and and be what's happening with kids they're they're actually shocked so you know I'm not I'm not even conservative I'm I'm left leaning center um so yeah it is a specific group on the left it's not everyone thank you for that answer and you got a you got fans out there uh Hilary's email says Kat that you are actually a chat favorite and that we're saying that you're awesome all well thank you so much because she has a cat look at that how do you say how do you say no to that a cat with a cat cat catception and I will say we only have one more question out there so if you have a burning desire to get your question for either all of our interlocutors now is the time to do so but Mike asks question for my uh for Malcolm I can't recall did you end up agreeing with Kat's interpretation of the studies you provided for the chat why no or why not um no um there were a few that we went over um the Swedish one specifically uh the author herself has kind of come out and stated her um like that people that are reading the study are misinterpreting it and that medical transition does decrease suicidality and improve quality of life um I don't even remember the other ones that we went over um the detrans ones somebody said earlier too that some of the the studies can be biased and like I agree depending on where you're sampling them from which is why I like the physician survey the best because you know it's sent out to the physicians that provide this care it's not just like snowball sampling with a survey monkey link on reddit posts um so yeah I do disagree um I don't remember exactly every single one that we talked about but those are the two ones that I um remember and all right on that note I do want to thank you all for joining us here on modern day debate we are a neutral platform welcoming everybody from all walks of life if you're looking for even more fantastic debates we are now all over the internet including your favorite podcasting platform so if you enjoy debates like the one tonight then please don't forget to like follow and subscribe it helps us reach an even wider audience including tonight's debate on does the left ignore d trans folks with our debaters Maddie and Malcolm and shapeshifter and cat here to help us find that answer plus if you like what any of our guests have said tonight all of our links are in the description below finally if you're looking for even more fun after the show feel free to check out our mdd discord and with that I am Amy Newman with modern day debate we hope you continue to have great conversations discussions and debates good night night thank you so much good night