 All right. Hello, Carol. Thanks so much for joining me. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. And thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. We're talking about your book, Tea, and we finally were able to link up. And I mentioned this. I mentioned this in something I wrote the other day. But even my girlfriend, like she was like, that woman Carol sounds pretty nice and awesome. And I'm like, I'm like, you know what she is? Because yeah, we were having scheduled in conflicts and all that. But I know you've you've you've gained a lot of popularity this year. But for those who don't know you, can you give us a little of what you do, what you research and what is this book tea about? I can, but I want you to promise me that we're all going to be able to see your chin. There you go. All right. Thank you. There we go. Thank you. Okay. So what is the book of what do you want me to start with? What is the book about for those who have not read it? What is the book about? So that's great. I'm glad you asked that because sometimes people just forget about the book and go right into the juicy stuff. Yeah. So the book is about the hormone testosterone. It's a reproductive hormone. And the book is about how it shapes males and females across the animal kingdom. But the perspective is to look at humans as animals and to understand how testosterone operates in our species to create some of the or contribute to some of the sex differences that we see in boys and girls and men and women. And to understand how that works and how it starts in utero, almost from conception from really early on, we have sex differences in testosterone levels that shape our brains and our bodies and set us up for the ability to maximize reproductive success, to convert energy into offspring. And males and females need to use different strategies to do that. And testosterone helps male animals to do that in the ways that make sense for them. And this happens in humans and non-human animals. And what's interesting, obviously, about us is that we have this incredibly complex culture that is highly gendered. So we have these important genetic, evolutionary genetic hormonal influences on our behavior that contribute to sex differences in behavior, but it's interacting with this complex culture. And we want to understand how those interactions work and how we can just understand the world around us that is so gendered. Why is it this way? What is this hormone doing mostly in male humans? And how can we understand its actions that help us understand the patterns that we observe in the world, like, you know, higher levels of physical aggression among men? That's something that's really important that we need to understand. And through understanding this hormone, you know, and differences in sexuality, for instance, understanding the hormone gives us a huge amount of insight into those questions. So basically that is what the book is about. Yeah. Yeah. And so you're the perfect person that has this. This is one of the reasons I was having to talk with you. So I am a huge psychology nerd, right? Like, something like my girlfriend laughs because I hate, I don't hate. I'm not a huge fan of all the research we do about space and like galaxies and stuff. I'm like, do you know how much stuff is going on right here? Like, we barely understand why we do the stuff we do. Let's focus on us. But anyways, I'm, you know, I started being really interested in like psychology and just human behavior. And you know, I really got into like just irrationality and stuff when I had the internet coming after me. I'm like, why do people do what they do? So anyways, I love psychology. My background's like kind of in mental health and stuff like that. But anyways, I have to interject. So I was a psych major as an undergrad because I was interested in the same kind of questions as you are. After that, when I started learning about learning about neurons and neurotransmitters in the brain in my senior year in college, that's when I really got interested in science and evolutionary biology. But that's also when I started to get interested in outer space and in like the driving principles that shape the universe and what is gravity and how does it shape our lives? So these, you know, it took me to this place like evolutionary biology is a way that is a tool we can use to understand these influences that we don't appreciate that are operating in us all that are so fundamental to our daily lives. Like gravity, I just find fascinating because it shapes almost every aspect of our lives, but we never sort of stopped to think about exactly what is this and how does it work? And I see evolutionary pressures that sculpt us and the mechanisms sort of the evolution shaped to that mold our behavior as something very similar to these deep laws of the universe, you know, that once you expose them, it really becomes fascinating and you could see, hey, maybe it could have been some other way, but it's this way for very good reasons. Sorry, I just went off on a tangent, but I just want to know. That's exactly kind of what I was going to ask and your answer a little bit. I'm like, you know, I, aside from just liking to learn, you know, loving to learn about different topics, I'm really curious because I talked with so many different academics and stuff and authors and I'm like, what made you interested in this specific field? So, you know, with, with your, you know, background, like, you know, studying psychology and stuff, I'm curious. So for example, right, you were, you were talking about, you know, testosterone and that's trying to understand like male aggression and stuff. Like recently, I had David Buss on here, right? And he takes that evolutionary sexual psychology aspect and, you know, I'm curious, you know, why, why do you want to go deeper? Like, is there anything, is there anything science can help us understand about testosterone that will help shape like the psychology? Like what's the, what's the goal, the interaction? You know what I mean? Like understanding it. I do. Yeah. Where does that lead? No, and I'm glad that's a nice kind of segue because I can, when I was just taking psychology in college, I found it really interesting, but I wanted something deeper and more powerful. It, I wasn't quite satisfied with the psychology, with explanations that didn't get at why, what is the ultimate mechanism? What are the ultimate forces that explain these observations? And I have not found anything more powerful and satisfying than evolutionary biology because it, there's a reason, there's always a reason in our evolutionary history that selects for genes that we carry that help us reproduce. We carry the genes of our successful ancestors, right? They were all reproductively successful. What traits did they have, physical and behavioral behavior, behavior all goes through the nervous system, right? And the nervous system and behavior has to be coordinated with our reproductive traits, the, the, like having a penis or a vagina or a, you know, prostate or a uterus, all that stuff or making sperm or making eggs, right? If you're an animal that makes sperm, you have to have a way to get the sperm into basically a female's reproductive tract, right? If you're a mammal. And so what is the system that can both guide the development of the system that enables the animal to produce the sperm, maintain that sperm production and have the motivation to, as it turns out, compete for the ability to get that sperm into a female reproductive tract, right? Just to put it crudely to reproduce. So the, there is one hormone that is in fact evolution's tool, it's sexual selections tool to help male animals reproduce, to coordinate the behaviors and the anatomy and physiology necessary to maximize their ability to convert the energy they get from the environment into offspring. Cause that is just what evolution does in all animals. Is it motivates them and shapes them in ways that enable to do that as effectively as possible. So just to go back to the original question, there's no deeper explanation for me about human behavior than that. And the reason the sex hormones are interesting is because I'm interested in sex and, you know, who is it, right? And, and sex differences. I'm, you know, as somebody who's interested in human behavior, it's male behavior is fascinating to me because I'm not in there. I'm not in your brain. I don't know what it's like. So as someone where that's my primary motivation to understand behavior, I kind of get female behavior. I'd like to, you know, I learn as much as I can about it, but I'm much more fascinated by male behavior because it's different. And I want to explain it. And I find no better way to explain it than through the lens of evolution, specifically sexual selection, understanding humans as animals. What do we share with non-human animals? What do we not share? How does, how is the environment involved here? So, yeah, testosterone to me is the, the most powerful way to do that and understanding how it interacts with the environment to shape the big patterns of behavior that we see. So here's a random question that I didn't even have down at my notes, but as you say that, like, right, like you're not in, you know, the male brain, you're more, you know, familiar. So have you ever, or do you ever, or maybe you do this when you're lecturing, and we've done like a dating workshop for like women to help them understand men and how testosterone is making us do the things that we're doing? I have not. Could be the next book. Yeah. That's interesting. We don't want to forget about non-heterosexual relationships and orientations because that's really important too. And I do, I just want to give a shout out to the importance of understanding same sex relationships and patterns of attraction, partly because it reveals a lot about heterosexual relationships. When you look at the sort of sexual and mating and relationship dynamics in, you know, female, female couples and female, male couples, we can see these real differences in expectations and behavior on average. And that tells us a lot about who we are as males and females in heterosexual relationships. So. Yeah. And, you know, that segues perfectly into another question I have. And you discuss this in the book and we'll jump back to childhood in a minute, right? But, you know, I'm personally someone who I grew up around like a lot of gay men because my mom, her best friends, were gay men and stuff like that. And, you know, there's always just the dumb argument around, like, is homosexuality a choice? Is it not? And all that kind of stuff. And you discuss some of this in the book. But, like, as you're mentioning, you know, male and male, you know, relationships, female and female. And then I think about, you know, testosterone and aggression. But when, you know, there's, you know, high domestic violence rates between, you know, lesbian couples. And I'm wondering, you know, and then, like, we see traits of, like, femininity in some men, you know, who are gay. And I'm like, how much does testosterone affect these or is it more nurture or lay it out there? Like, help me understand. How does testosterone affect what? Those relationships, right? So, like, for example, if we're, if we just focused on domestic violence in females, right? And, you know, in female couples. Is there any research that shows, like, a higher level of testosterone compared to, like, estrogen or, like, what would you say is that? Okay. So, first of all, I'm familiar with the literature on domestic violence and sex differences in rates and types of domestic violence. I know that there's a higher rate in homosexual male couples. I'm not familiar with the literature showing that there's a higher rate and I'd be interested in that. I'm not sure why I wouldn't have come across that. But in lesbian couples, you're saying there's a higher rate than what? Yeah, then just average, like, for example, I was going to ask you too, like, I've been, I've been in abusive relationships back in my addiction. I had a real good radar for finding just abuse of women, right? So there were sorts of, like, violence and things like that. And I'll have to look up the stats. I think it was within the last couple of years and I'll email it to you if I can. But it was talking about high domestic violence rates and maybe it was in both same-sex couples. That could be what it was because I do know about, like, domestic violence rates within men and that makes sense to me because you've got two people with high testosterone levels, you know what I mean? Yeah. But here's a better question. Sorry, can I just pause for a second because you mentioned that you were in, and I'm sorry to hear this, that you were in an abusive relationship where the woman was the abuser. Yeah, multiple. So that's much popular for you to say. And I got some pushback in the writing and editing process of my book because I quote that data, that it's true, and of course there's huge cross-cultural variation here because in some cultures it's expected that men will be abusive towards physically abusive towards their partners and that women will not be able to even defend themselves. And say in the United States and in Europe, the rates of female interpersonal violence are as high many times or almost as high as the rates of male interpersonal violence. And it's my view that this needs more attention. It's underappreciated because people don't like to hear it because they think then takes the attention away from the more important ostensibly problem of male on female violence. So what's interesting is that, yes, women are more likely to use low-level physical aggression against their partners, but definitely physical aggression, huge amounts of anger, punching, kicking, throwing things, even stabbing sometimes, or even shooting, and sometimes killing. But however, many times that's in response, you know, it's in self-defense in response to male abuse, but many times it's not. But the really interesting statistic is that men are much more likely to seriously injure or murder women, their partner. So far more women die at the hands of their male partner than men would die or be seriously injured by their female partner. And that's where there does seem to be a role of testosterone because there is some evidence that, well, obviously the sex difference in extreme physical aggression is present across all cultures and humans and it's present in non-human animals. Male animals tend to be more physically violent than female animals because it yields reproductive benefits for them, especially in male-male competition. And there's some evidence that male typical levels of testosterone tend to reduce empathy and that it's then easier for men to escalate to serious physical aggression during a physical conflict where women are more likely to be inhibited and really causing serious damage. But I wasn't, so the lesbian couple thing is interesting if that's the case, that might be the case and I'm just not familiar with it. There is some evidence that aggression in adults is not conditioned just based on current testosterone levels in adulthood, but by exposure to testosterone in utero. And there's some evidence that people who grow up to, women who grow up to be non-heterosexual have some evidence suggests they had higher levels of testosterone in utero. That's not like the clearest finding on the planet, but there's some suggestion there. Yeah, it's something that I can go on a rant about where we have these larger issues, such as male on female violence. It's insane, the domestic violence where men are the aggressor and things like that. Many times women are in self-defense and stuff, but just me, you want to get into the male brain. I don't talk about it because I don't want to take away from that, but it's... Oh, but it happened to you. Yeah. No, that's your experience. I hope that you wouldn't inhibit that. That's something that needs, that we need attention on that issue. It's important. Yeah, but have you noticed this? It comes up with the trans conversations and everything too, because, for example, the other day I was having a conversation or even a debate with somebody about people who detransition, right? They're like, well, this is just a small portion. We need to focus on this. But for all of these things, it's like, okay, well, can we talk about both, like even though one is less or less prevalent than the other? That's important too. I interview a deep transitioner in my book. I haven't had any real complaints about that, but there was also during the writing process and editing, there was a fear that this would suggest that I'm anti-trans, right? That you're not allowed to talk about this one thing because it will invalidate this other thing. Like you, I think we should be able to talk about it all, and this is a reality, and this happens not that often. Most people are happy with their transitions, but those are stories that I think need to be heard. And it's also just from a testosterone point of view, fascinating for me, as someone who really wants to understand more about it, what's it like to go from a female level to a male level and live that way for a while, and not just report on it after you've transitioned and you're living as a male, with high testosterone, but to reflect on it after you come back to living as a female with female levels and then to talk about it. Yeah, especially from a science perspective. You are just the best because you have psychology and biology right here. So I'm always wondering about nature versus nurture and stuff, and you talk about this a little bit in the book, where how kids develop, and boys are going to play with trucks and be rough and tumble and all this, but you talk about is this us pushing gender norms on kids, and they've done that research where you hand somebody a baby and make them think it's a girl and they treat them a different way, and all this stuff. And you talk about this in the book, but help me understand a little bit more on those who have yet to read the book. How much is that shaped by environment versus testosterone levels? Yeah, no, great. I'm glad you brought up the experiments with the baby. So it is a fact that people do, I'm sure that I do this. And people say that they don't treat anybody differently based on their sex, but it's almost impossible not to. Or a million other different characteristics about people, whether they're tall, short, male, female, black, white, all these things contribute right to how we respond to people. You almost can't help it. So if you believe that a baby dress it up like a boy, people react to that baby in a different way. They are a little bit rougher with it than they would be if they think it's a girl baby, they use different tones of voice, they say different words and it's only a baby. And I think most people can imagine that, yeah, that's probably true. But what then most people also imagine is that's what causes, it's that differential treatment that explains the differences in childhood behavior because the world is so gendered. So I just, so there is no evidence for point B, right? There's evidence for testosterone and gene, mostly testosterone actually acting in the brain in utero in ways that promote male typical behavior. And male typical behavior is basically more physical, more active and more physical. And that's again, the reason that I can say this is that it's not just the way that people interact with the babies is because I have used a comparative, broad evolutionary comparative perspective. The sex differences that we see in boys and girls are paralleled in many ways. I spent eight months with chimpanzees in Uganda before I came to Harvard for my PhD. And you can see the huge sex differences in the chimps, in the juveniles and in the adults that in its most basic form, in terms of nurturing and physical play and aggression, had these very strong parallels with human behavior. That's not because they live in a culture that is intentionally gendered. It's just nature. It is little male juveniles have to be motivated to practice the behaviors that they need to be reproductively successful as adults. So I have a 12 year old boy. He likes to tackle other kids. I mean, he's doing less of that now, but that's what he did growing up. He's not even like an athletic kid. He's kind of an artsy bookworm. But nonetheless, he loves just jumping all over his friends. And girls do not typically play this way with other girls. They have other things that they like to play. So when you see the same patterns in nonhuman animals, you have an evolutionary explanation for it. It's practicing physical status competition. It has to be fun. You have to work it out. How do you relate to other male members of your own species in ways that you can be physical, understand the signals that you have to respond to about dominance and hierarchy, and it has to be fun. And so it's play. And we know that in nonhuman animals, when you manipulate testosterone in utero or directly after birth, you can then also change the expression of that behavior. You can masculinize it or feminize it, right? Just based on early testosterone exposure. And we have evidence from humans in when fetuses are female fetuses are exposed to unusually high levels of testosterone in a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, those girls engage in more rough and tumble play. They're more likely to want to play with the kinds of toys that boys play with. And that's only due to this early testosterone exposure that is usually corrected at birth. So we have all kinds of evidence that is hormonal and a pretty solid evolutionary theory there that shows why these sex differences make sense and are not simply a product of cultural conditioning. That being said, you can budge the expression of those behaviors around by changing cultural, you know, depending on cultural norms, right? So in some cultures, they're much more sexually differentiated. There's much more traditional gender roles. You're going to see greater division of these behaviors and in other cultures that are more flexible, you'll see less division between the sexes, you'll see more overlap. But overall, you'll never see girls doing more of that kind of physical play than boys. You'll never see women committing more physical violence and aggression than men anywhere, although the type of expression of, you know, the exact way that that is expressed and the degree, the amount of the sex difference, of course, is going to vary tremendously based on, like, laws and customs and religion, etc. Yeah, and I, yeah, now I remember our sons are the same age and I think I go, Oh, and he just got, did some national honor society thing. He just got a national junior honor society, right? Yeah, congratulations. But yeah, with what you were saying to like, I get curious because he's, he's this sweet, compassionate little boy, right? And like, I've never been typically masculine. I play sports throughout high school, but I don't watch sports. I don't do anything. I'm sober now. So I'm not out drinking brews with the buds and stuff like that. But my son, like, he went through like a whole like unicorn phase and everything like that. And he's into that. And he likes, you know, he likes drawing. But like you said, like he's a gamer. And when he gets in there, you see that kind of male aggression come out. And it's interesting just, you know, looking and watching and, you know, you know, and I've always said, like, I don't care how he turns out, if he ends up, you know, you know, being gay and like men, or if he ends up with a different political ideology than me, as long as he's not a dick, I really don't care. No, I just say, I feel exactly the same way. My son went through a period where he used to wear a dress. He wore a dress to school. And I was like, fine, just as long as it's clean and you look nice. At point one, like, yeah, who cares? And the point two is the kid who wore a dress for a while is the kid who is pouncing on his friends. And I should also just say that that behavior, that like typically masculine behavior, boys who grow up to be gay are much less likely to show that particular kind of behavior. So I just want to emphasize that, you know, there's a huge amount of variation. And boys who grow up to be gay are more likely to want to play with and like the girls, you know, so it's there's like a lot of variation. This is just on average, what we see in yeah, yeah, I think yeah, that's what I was thinking the whole time when you're talking to is this on average. And like you mentioned, there's certain things that can happen in utero and all that. But so one of the one of the things that's going on, you know, with, you know, just, I don't know, just certain parents becoming very, I don't know, different and trying to change these gender norms and stuff. Here's what I'm wondering as I'm listening, right? Like there's been like stories about like, oh, we're raising our kid non-binary or yeah, yeah, right? And so I see that or like we're, or, you know, there's a lot of controversy around like raising their male child as a girl. So like, I guess, like, there's two questions, right? Would that work, right? Could the psychology of that overpower, you know, the hormones and all that kind of stuff. And let's say, let's say this became more popular down the line in evolution, would that change kind of how testosterone does its thing? Yeah. Okay, basically, I would say no. But I should say no. But what I do think is that that's totally the right idea, which, you know, I think gender norms should be relaxed as much as possible. I personally wish that we didn't have to label every possible way that those people break out of traditional gender norms. I wish that there were just more flexibility for people to be who they are, right? And so that is my personal view. Of course, you know, there's, again, a huge amount of cultural, religious variation and all of that. I do not think that, okay, and gay kids are the perfect example. So in many parts of the world, it is not okay to be an adult gay person. And it's not okay for little boys, for instance, especially for little boys, it's okay for girls to behave in very masculine ways because men have the power and that's in many societies, it's perfectly fine if a girl wants to go and be stronger and more powerful. Although it can be also very awkward, I just should interject. For some girls who are going to grow up to be lesbians to feel that they don't fit in with other girls. So that applies to sort of pre gay girls too. But for boys in particular, who have been called, you know, used to be called sissies or, you know, I would say are gender non conforming, in many families, they are positively punished for those behaviors, right? So the social pressures, the cultural pressures, the religious pressures are enormous, right? Those kids, they might fake in various ways trying to act like the other boys and like they love sports and like they're tough. And that's I can hardly talk about that is so heartbreaking that someone feels ashamed for who they are in that way. But I think it does. Sorry, it does. It does illustrate that people are going to be who they are. They have their natures. That's a basic nature. We can change our behavior. We can change how we express our nature. Sometimes we're just not allowed to, right? Especially if you have a propensity for physical aggression, right? You can't always express that. I don't want to equate that to gender non conformity. But it's the same idea of, you know, culture can nudge around the expression of your nature, but your nature's always going to be there. No matter how heavy the pressure coming from the culture is, how awful or difficult it might be, you know, and ideally we relax those norms, we let people grow into whoever they're going to be. Yeah. Yeah. And for some reason, I was just thinking there was all that, you know, stuff about Harry Styles recently where he like wore a dress. I'm like, what about like the people in Scotland? Like that's tradition, like wearing kilts and stuff. Like, just like people wear whatever and, you know, wear whatever. But I do wish that people could do that and didn't feel that they had to become something else or relabel themselves. I wish they could that ultimately we get to a place where there's just total flexibility and acceptance. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And here's the thing. And like, you know, just it's crazy let me let me ask you, let me ask you this real quick. I'll form it like this. Like I want to know I want to know about, you know, the experience of people reading the book because as I'm reading this book, right? So whenever books are coming out and there's like hype and stuff, I talked with this about with Paige Hardin just a week or two ago, because she had that big New Yorker piece and people are losing their minds. I got an early copy of the book. Like I talk with publishers. I got an early copy. I read it cover to cover. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. Right. And before reading your book, I was very late on the train to reading your book because I'm not huge in like books on my biological stuff. But like, this seems like an interesting book and you did a great job educating a non biology guy like me. But anyways, I have to ask, like, I read the book and and you know, you talk about like from childhood and you talk about, you know, in college, you talk about, you know, a student who came up to you and I believe there were intersex and stuff like that. And anyways, just to flatter you a little bit, I'm like, this woman Carol is a kind, compassionate caring person. And I will fight anybody who says that she like, you know, is like transphobic or whatever. And that so I'm curious as an author, I'm always wondering, how many people do you think have been pissed off that didn't even read the book? Well, I would say the people who are pissed off did not read the book like. So I don't think it's the book that pissed people off. It's me going on Fox News and saying that there are two sexes sexes defined by your gametes and that this really has no impact on our support for the rights of trans people and respecting gender identities and gender expression. So I think that's, you know, just to be completely out about it, that is what upset people upset some people like a small very maybe more people than I know about, but it's it's contrary to what people how people want to have some people want to have conversations about some sensitive issues right now and I'm not going along with maybe what some people how some people want that conversation to go like in the book what I do is really stick up for science and I try to show that we can discuss the science openly. We should be learning about reality and that we can use that understanding to be more compassionate people to understand people who are different from us even to understand some of the problems that men face in their behavior and to even have some compassion for, you know, all kinds of struggles by by learning more about how things work and I so so I can't even remember exactly what you asked, but you know, some people you know they want they do have a certain narrative and if that narrative is really contrary to the science then I'm going to push back and I'm going to try to do it in a way that shows that it doesn't interfere with our support of all kinds of human rights and in fact the best way to support human rights for all kinds of people is to have them be based on reality and good science and that's how we make progress and I just want to show that we don't have to twist around scientific facts and confuse people to have empathy and compassion for people who are different and suffering, you know, because of those differences. Yeah. Yeah, it's so, you know, I'm often thinking about how much fear there is, right? Like I don't necessarily, you know, think it's like people have a problem with the science, it's the fear. Like for example, and I was talking with Paige Hardin, like, I think like books like yours, her book, like her book is like, yo, all this stuff that people misunderstand about genetics are affecting social outcomes, right? And I'm like, yeah, we have massive problems with racism, sexism with, you know, wealth inequality and people not understanding luck versus, you know, and all these things, right? And I look at yours and I'm thinking about how we're trying to, you know, progress the science and we're looking at, you know, more people transitioning. And the best thing we could do is understand this stuff so we can have safer, better things. And so when I look at it like that, I'm like, this is helping. And maybe I was just thinking as you were talking to, I wonder if it comes from my addiction background, because for lack of better words, like I just thought I was a piece of shit, right? And as I started to learn about the science and genetic components, and you know, growing up in a household with an alcoholic mom, I'm like, thank God, some people research this stuff. So I have better answers. And I, you know, because there's scientific research around evidence based therapies, like cognitive behavioral therapy and stuff like that, I cannot waste my time on BS. So anyways, science is very helpful. So when I look at it, I'm like, what is the issue? And it seems like fear, like a lot of it is fear, right? So with genetics, it's like people are afraid that, you know, the next Hitler's going to come out and want to wipe out people and, you know, and all this stuff. But with your, with your area of expertise, it seems like a lot of fear, right? So with, with you, you know, being asked to come on, like things like Fox News, I see people being afraid that you're gonna, you're gonna give weapons to the alt right or some crazy politician. And so how much of this do you think is based around fear, not the science, but the fear? A hundred percent. Everyone is scared. No, they are, I'm, I'm right in the middle of it. People make decisions about language, about what they're gonna say, about what they're gonna study, what they're gonna teach out of fear. So that's from one side of it, right? People are scared. And I do not blame them because being the target of some campaign to have your, you know, character and motives completely slammed rather than engaging in your science and your arguments. It's awful because that's not how I feel. Like I, students who take my class are students who want to learn about themselves. I've had a bunch of trans kids. I have a lot of gay kids. I've questioning kids. I, you know, all kind of students who want the science. So my chapter on the trans chapters, you saw it's pretty deep, the science in there is pretty detailed. I want people who have gender dysphoria, who are thinking of puberty blockers, who are on testosterone, on estrogen, blocking it. You know, I want them to really understand what is happening and why and what other people's experiences are. And that's a resource for them. And I, you're right, people, I don't want to patronize anybody by saying, Oh, I'm going to tell you this little story so that you feel better about yourself. And so that you can then hope that the rest of the world is going to support your rights. And I'm going to kind of tell you something that's not really true, or I'm going to withhold the truth. No, I know, because I teach my students, they want to learn how the science works, they can handle it, they are able to deal with some degree of discomfort and even offense. They enjoy the process of sort of having to work through what they believe and what their reactions are and to push back. And that all comes into the classroom. And that's okay. And they can handle that and disagreements. Okay, you know, we have to learn how to look at the evidence and think about what it means. So, and there was one other point I wanted to make about your question. And now I forgot it. We're going to be talking about fear for a little bit. So yeah, no, the other side of it. Yeah, I mean, it's fear on the, you know, language idea, talking out loud in public side, which is obviously too bad, because what we teach and what we say and even what we think should be in response to rational discourse and logical thinking and having your ideas challenged and coming to reasoned, thoughtful, considered decisions rather than passively accepting whatever the current trends and pressures are because you're scared shitless. But again, it's correct that fear is correct because people will try to ruin your reputation. Okay, so there's that. But then I also understand the fear that vulnerable people face who have difficult lives because of their differences. They I told, I mean, I can really see why some of those people want to direct a certain narrative because they think it's going perhaps to protect them, right? So there are different every, nobody's just, I don't think purposely being unreasonable or causing harm, you know, I think everyone thinks they're doing the right thing. Yeah. But my number one priority is, you know, good science with sensitive as with as much sensitivity as possible. And I think that's doing a service, you know, is trying to produce and communicate the truth, like let's figure out how things work. And let's help people figure out how to use those facts to improve not only their lives, but socially, how can we use scientific information to improve everybody's lives? I just don't see any other way to go shutting down conversation, twisting scientific facts, people aren't taking their vaccines, for instance, because nobody trusts science, people are literally dying because you know, political divisions and the fact that science has become so politicized. I'm really pushing back on that. It's not healthy. People are dying. So I think we need to get back, or I don't know if we were ever there, but I think we are in a precarious point here. Yeah, like, you know, it's crazy. And as you're talking about, I'm thinking about all this stuff, like there have been, you know, there's been like legislation that's had to be created, for example, like during clinical trials for medications, like you have to have, or yeah, like in a bunch of stuff, you have to have informed consent, right? Like, so me as somebody who has struggled with depression and anxiety, and I was a prescription opioid addict, right? I have had to educate myself on side effects of taking this depressant, so I can weigh my pros and cons, right? One of the reasons that the opioid crisis has spun out of control, and we just hit record numbers of overdose deaths is because doctors and people like Purdue Pharma were not giving people the proper scientific information like, oh, no, no, no, these people aren't opioid addicts. That's a pseudo addiction, right? And if we shut down conversation, people who do have bad intentions can easily start covering stuff up for profit and all these things. And I just want people to understand that, right? And we need to dial back our fear a little bit. But here's my question to you. But it's hard. That's hard. People are scared for good reason. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's something I try to remember, like I try to be, you know, empathetic of that fear and stuff like that. But I have this kind of faith that, you know, especially reading books about why we need to have these discussions and free speech and all that, because I do believe that good ideas do win out when we're not censoring. And, you know, we have a bunch of stuff to fix with social media algorithms and how it spreads nonsense and keeps people echo chambers. But anyways, now I want to talk about the other fear though, not like the fear from, you know, people like from the trans community and stuff like that. But it seems like there's also a lot of fear from the other side, right? So when we're talking about men and aggression and stuff like that, something I've heard recently that's come up quite a bit is trans women going into female prisons, right? I also have a friend who runs a women's shelter here in Las Vegas, right? And one of the fears is, well, if we let anybody identify as trans or willy-nilly and stuff like that, you know, they can abuse women and get access to women. And there's been, you know, I was watching something the other day about instances of a trans woman raping women in a women's prison, right? So, you know, I think, you know, a lot of this stuff we have to look at statistics as we can get anecdotal all day long. But based on what you're telling me about testosterone, like how does, with the aggression factors, if somebody is transitioning and taking the proper medications and stuff like that, does it tone down the aggression? Like, should there be a fear of a trans woman in women's spaces from the aggression point of view? Okay. So there's two things I want to say. And this is very important. And so the first thing about fear that I remember that I wanted to just talk about is fear about biological determinism, fear that if we offer up explanations for human behavior, particularly for male behavior that some people, you know, that may be troublesome, bad, I'll just say, then people, you know, will resist those explanations because it seems like it's validating the behavior and making it seem like, you know, A, it's okay, because it's natural and B, there's nothing we can do about it. And without going into it, I'll say both of those are obviously wrong. There's just so much evidence that those two conclusions are unfounded. And therefore those fears are unfounded. They're reasonable. We can understand why people have those fears, but they're not grounded in reality. The second thing that you're asking is very provocative. And yeah, some people are concerned about, you know, the larger issue, well, there's a few issues, but the larger issue is should trans women be able to who identify, who may even be legally female, because in the states we have self ID in some states, and this was proposed bill in the UK where a, you know, it's not an issue for trans men, people don't men don't seem to care if trans men use their spaces. But I'll just say in this context, natal females, meaning biological females and women, there are natal females who want to preserve the right to have female only spaces like domestic abuse shelters, rape shelters, prisons, locker rooms, places where they may feel vulnerable physically, but also just awkward. So there's another, you know, that's another part of it is they just not, they might just want to have a space with other women. And the self ID laws allow someone to just declare that they like a male, a natal male to be able to declare that he is a, or in this case I'll say she is a trans woman or she is in fact a woman and then would have access to female spaces. So my personal view is that, you know, 90 something percent of trans women are just people who want to live their lives as women are no threat to anyone and are, you know, just regular human beings who are not a threat to women, but that's almost separate from well how do women feel about their own, you know, right to their own spaces, right? So, you know, but there is a lot of hysteria around trans women when most of them are just people who want to get on with their lives, right? And just live as women. But what you asked is does the typical male aggression, and I would say it's not just physical aggression. It is a sexual nature that can be threatening to women. It is, it is in fact men who do the 99 percent of the raping, 95 percent of the murdering, but that it is the, you know, sexual violence, sexual exploitation that is threatened, most threatening, right, to women. And that's a fear that is totally reasonable. And it is true that in my view, this is a product of first of all, different societies allowing the expression of that behavior. But I do think it's obvious that it's because of male typical levels of testosterone in utero, in adulthood, that shape men and their psychology, it does shape their sexuality in a way that is more intense and urgent than it is for women. And this is why men go to extraordinary lengths to get sex. Like they will ruin their lives, they ruin their reputations, they will torture, they will kill, they will kidnap, they will, you know, go to lengths that are like, it's hard to explain why they would construct their whole lives around being a sexual predator, right? It's because they're men. And I, I'm sorry to say that, but women don't typically do that, then do because sex is, has a different salience for men than for women. And that's, I would say because of testosterone, it is the culture that can get that can put the, you know, reins on that that can help men be incentivized to control the expression of that particular, those desires, right? So laws, norms, customs, temperature, socioeconomic status, you know, job opportunities, mating systems, et cetera, those things are all going to affect that. So for trans women, first of all, most men are not physically aggressive. Okay. So, okay. So if you start with that assumption, that observation, and again, this depends, this varies by culture, just how physically aggressive most men are, but in the culture that we are in, most men are not extremely physical, physically aggressive. Most men are not violently raping and attacking women. So the concern about trans women, we have to remember, like, there's no reason to think that they're going to be more particularly violent, right? However, so aggression levels, it's, so then you're not going to see some huge decline in physical aggression, when natal males block their testosterone levels, because there wasn't a lot of physical aggression to start with. So when you look at the literature, literature to see what happens in trans women, there's not a huge amount of decline in aggression. There's some reports of decline in anger, some reports of decline in physical aggression, but that's not the most robust finding. The most robust finding is that sexual desire goes way down, that urgency for sex goes way down. That's even, you know, and these are people many times who will retain their male reproductive structure. So they're still going to have a penis, but I think some of the concern from some natal females about their spaces is in self ID where trans women do not have to suppress their testosterone, do not have to have any particular kind of surgery, can basically be fully intact natal males who declare themselves as female and then have access to spaces that are typically women's spaces. So, you know, there's some understanding male sexuality and male aggression. If they're like completely unaltered, there is some fear that, yeah, women could be extremely uncomfortable or even physically attacked. And I think that is something that's totally valid for discussion, you know, what our law is going to be. People shouldn't be backing away from those discussions because they're afraid they'll be labeled transphobic, but that is what is happening. And that's a shame because that's interfering with people's rights. Everybody, you know, trans people have rights and women who have been abused and want to access a rape shelter without any natal males should be heard also. So I think here we do need discussions. So sorry, that was a super long answer. I think it's a really complicated issue. I wish that we would stop the name calling. People have the right to their opinion. Women have the right to say that they want their own spaces, because if they don't really understand, also when you shut down discussion, you're not even going to hear the point of view from trans women who are like, look, I just want to use the women's bathroom. It's really awkward for me to go into the man's room. People need to hear what that is like, and they're not going to be sympathetic to those positions. If the discussion is shut down, they're just going to be pissed off because people are calling them transphobic. Yeah, it just, you know, this is something I could talk about just for hours. It just bothers me that we live in this world where we shut down conversations. I'm like, they're conversations, they're words, they're, you know, these things, right? And we have balances like where things aren't going to, you know, there's a slippery slope argument. Well, if we're talking about this, they're not going to turn into that. But it's like, I don't know. I look back and I'm like, you know, nine years ago, I was dying at 27 years old with congestive heart failure. I'm like, the last thing I'm worried about is a freaking conversation. You know what I mean? Like there's conversation, like trust me, like when it comes to like my thing, I guess, is addiction, there's plenty of areas where, you know, there's the guy, what's his name, Duerte in the Philippines who thinks you should just chill, drug out. Yeah, like there's crazy people out there and stuff. So that's something I'm very passionate about. But it's like, let's talk. Then if somebody gets a little crazy, then let's reevaluate. But anyway, like, yeah, no, I mean, I understand though, if you're a trans person who thinks that your rights are going to be diminished, if people express certain views, then I can see, you know, how that's extremely threatening. And how would you respond to that? So I get it, but what are we going to do? You know, I still think we need to be able to trust that people are working in good faith. Yeah. So difficult. And you know what it is, and I hate to get cheesy, like it's just compassion, right? It's not just thinking about us, like you're like, you know, we're talking about with like, I know a lot of women who have been victims of, you know, sexual assault and violence, it's like, they should be able to express their concerns. And, you know, we either comfort them with statistics. And like you said, like most, you know, most guys are not violent and stuff like that. But I have a couple more questions. And I think this next one is good for, you know, the bigger picture as well. And this is an old story, but can't remember if you touched on it in the book. Anyways, James D'Amour getting fired from Google. Yeah. No, I didn't. I did. Oh, okay, cool. So as somebody who studies testosterone and natuverse nurture and all that, like, and the listeners who don't know James D'Amour wrote this internal memo at Google that blew up saying there's biological difference between males and females and gender things that women aren't as likely to become programmers. I'm summarizing that. And you did say testosterone was one of the major reasons. Yeah. No, I did my dissertation actually on sex differences in cognition and the role of testosterone. But I left that mostly out of the book. But yeah, no, I'm very interested in that discussion. How accurate was what James D'Amour said? Did you read it? And you're like, oh, this programmer notes quite a bit about these differences and everything. Or where you're like, eh, you know, he expresses opinion, but he's wrong and looked at the data incorrectly or, you know, whatever. So because that's not his expertise. No, he basically in many ways recapitulated what Larry Summers had talked about in I think 2004 at a MIT conference about trying to understand the reasons why women are not more are underrepresented in STEM fields. And so he proffered a few different hypotheses, you know, that women are the ones who have the kids and but discrimination, which he thought was not as important as the lifestyle desires. But he also suggested that there's a difference in the distribution of abilities, which is a fact between men and women. So that for men for any almost any cognitive or even behavioral trait, you're going to see a distribution curve like this low and relatively flat compared to women. So if we're taking, say, abstract reasoning or physics ability, whatever underlying trait sort of feeds into or supports physics talent, right? And if you could measure that, you'll see this in men. So see a lot more to women would be more like this, right? So you just have a the means could be the same for many traits, the means are the same. But for many, they're slightly different. But what's really different is the pool, what Larry Summers said, the pool available at the high end. So you'll have more men who are really terrible at any particular thing, but more men who are really, really there on the very high end, where the even if the means are the same, if the the female curves sort of peter out earlier than the male distribution curve, right? So you will have more kind of genius physicists who MIT or Harvard might want to hire, you'll have maybe five men for every one woman, not because the mean is different, not because men overall are better at physics, but at that very high end where elite institutions are hiring, you're going to see differences between the sexes. That is one thing. So that's one reason we might see these differences in representation in STEM fields. There's a bunch of other factors that go into it. But another factor that James D'Amore was alluding to is interest. And that, and this is the case, and this does seem to be related to testosterone, that males want males prefer careers and have interests that have more to do with things, messing with things and figuring things out rather than that have to do with people and involve people skills and picking up on each other's emotions and talking. That's a fact, right? These interests exist across many cultures. And it is also true that, again, this might have a lot to do with prenatal exposure to testosterone. I think people under appreciate how important that is. And that has to be taken into consideration when you're thinking about transgender transitions. You're not changing the way that the brain has been permanently shaped by testosterone or not in utero. So a trans man did not have high levels of testosterone in utero, and a trans woman did. So even if you shut down your testosterone in adulthood, you still have some influences of that testosterone in utero. So there is evidence that girls who are exposed to higher levels of testosterone in utero are more likely to have male typical career interests as adults and are more likely to want to work with things or like be a truck driver or a plumber or something. And there might be social reasons for this, too. But they're more likely to do that than girls who had typical levels of testosterone in utero. So I do think James D'Amore was basically right. That it might be that, hey, we should not expect equality of outcome in every profession. Nobody cares if there aren't a lot of women going into coal mining or the more dangerous professions. They're not flocking to those professions at all. And nobody cares. Even the more lucrative professions that are somewhat dangerous. People aren't trying to get women into them like they are in STEM or coding or whatever. So there is a difference in interest and inclination there. And it might have to do with testosterone. It's perfectly reasonable to posit that there's a biological contribution here. That's what he did. And yeah, he got reamed just as President Somers did at the time when he was president of Harvard. He was basically forced to resign shortly after that. So you're not allowed to have these views and express them publicly, which is bizarre to me because solving the cultural environmental problems isn't particularly easy. And of course, everybody should understand that most of these things are gene environment interactions. And they're complex interactions there that underlie the patterns that we see. And it's not one or the other. Yeah, I just think it sets expectations when we're able to have these conversations and look at these things and all that. And I just try to think scientifically as much as possible. Right. And I dropped out of college. I'm no scientist, but I just try to look and I see all these like the political kind of like what conversations we're having. But on the other side of it, if you look at the opposite person, there's something that comes up in a lot of books is, I think even in the culling of the American mind, maybe they talk about the lack of conservative professors, right? And I recently had a professor on and he's a conservative and I was like, why do you think this is he teaches philosophy? Where does he teach? Not in New England. No, no, no, it's in Pennsylvania. I don't know if it's in state or what, but anyway, you have like a minute unless you're in the economics department, otherwise there's very, very small proportion of, you know, you've seen these surveys, right? There's hardly any conservative professors, especially the administration is super, super liberal. It's just interesting because I think people can have these conversations if they recognize it because, you know, conservatives are like, hey, we're under representative, but one of the, you have like three different hypotheses that get floated around. And one of them is being an educator doesn't pay that much and conservatives are more likely to be driven by, you know, money and stuff like that. Yeah, and like, I'm like, okay, well, let's have this conversation, but it's funny because I think you could take people from different ideologies and they can actually connect on this, right? And be like, hey, well, maybe this is possible or maybe this is possible. And, you know, there's a small portion. I wonder just to connect up with the Google thing and women's choices, of course, there is also discrimination and it's not even just blatant discrimination. It's like, maybe it's just an uncomfortable environment for women. Maybe it's an uncomfortable environment for conservatives and anything for conservative students know it is because I've talked to students who are conservative who say they just keep their mouth shut in some of them speak up, but they're the super brave ones. And I think that is a disaster because that just means that the kind of more progressive liberal ideas are just given free reign and nobody's pushing back and that's what should be happening in the classroom. So we need more conservative, students and professors in my view. And it's just not the emphasis in diversity now is definitely not on viewpoint and political diversity. And we're doing some good things in terms of identity and ethnicity, et cetera. But I think there definitely needs to be more attention paid to viewpoint diversity. Absolutely. Yeah, so I absolutely agree. And I recently had a Bonnie Carrigan Snyder from Fire. I was just telling you about that, but she talks about that diverse view diversity in classrooms and students self censoring. I think about that with like my 12 year old son, I don't want him to not be able to ask questions or have, you know, these conversations. But anyways, Carol, one last question. And this, this is kind of in the same realm of politics. And, you know, you mentioned that your little clip went viral from Fox News. And I've been really curious about this lately, not like just with, you know, people who have these, you know, or research things that could be controversial. And I'm wondering, because I don't follow all of your interviews, I'm sorry, I love them, but I don't has has has liberal left leaning media reached out to you as often, or are they too scared? That's kind of my question. Well, I don't know what it is. I don't know what the reason that they have not is. And like the even yeah, the Wall Street Journal reviewed my book. And it was an amazing review that I was very pleased with. New York Times would be great. But yeah, but it's been more sort of conservative podcasters. I mean, I don't think of like Joe Rogan as conservative, a lot of people do. And many people were at least the ones who are I heard from a lot of people who, you know, had a lot of positive emails from most of my appearances. But just it's mostly on Twitter. Some people or Facebook or something just went after me from going on Fox News or going on Joe Rogan or Andrew Sullivan. I'm fans of Barry Weiss, Andrew Sullivan and Joe Rogan. Not because I agree with everything that they have to say, just hearing on the podcast doesn't mean I agree with all of their, you know, I'm sure they've said some things that I would be offended by, but they're out there having conversations. And that's what I want to support. They're curious, they're, you know, there's back and forth, everybody's acting in good faith. And the Fox News thing, I don't want to just sit here and preach to the converted. I want that audience to read my book. I think it's a great book. I think they'll be educated by it. And I think it will move things in the direction that I think they need to go. I don't see why people like me shouldn't talk to like half the country or however many people watch Fox or voted for Trump. I don't care. I don't think they're bad people. Like, I don't like that at all. I think we need to talk to people we, you know, who may be very different from us. And we have the moral high ground. Yeah. No, I, I honestly get worried. Like the, the, my podcast, it is growing very well. And I'm like, cool. This is awesome. It's going so happy for you. You've come a long way. You've come a long way and congratulations. I'm so glad you have this going right now. Yeah. Well, part of it is because like you said, I am just so curious and I love having conversations and I'm just like, okay, Chris, but don't get too big because then people will be like, why did you platform this neo-Nazi transphobic racist? Do whatever you want. Yeah, but okay. So like, just real quick on that, like, do you see it as like a self fulfilling prophecy, right? So if we dial back and look at the big picture, right? So yeah, people shutting down conversations that you're trying to have about the science and the research and stuff like that. So now the only people who are interviewing you and giving you a voice are people that they're against. So you don't even get to talk to the other side and give them arguing points and facts and data. So it's kind of turning, it has the possibility of turning into what they don't want to happen. Does that make sense? And I hope that's not the case. I don't know exactly who is buying my book, but I've heard from all kinds of people. So I think the book is sort of separate from, you know, Twitter and podcasts. A lot of people have no idea what's going on. Don't listen to podcasts and don't know, you know, what's going on there. But in a lot of ways, yeah, it is a self fulfilling prophecy. And that's too bad. And if people just read the book, they'll, you know, it's there's nothing political. I don't think maybe tiny bit. I don't know. I don't think there's really anything political in the book to take a stance on too many social issues because I want people to just appreciate the science and then have that inform their views and discussions. Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, I'm not a biology guy. And I was like, oh, I learned quite a bit. So you're an excellent teacher. So Carol, I am so happy that we're able to link up and you're able to come on and chat about the book. So I took so long and I was so disorganized. You're busy and busy as good. So where can people find you? And is the book, is the book out everywhere? Is it international? Can we find it? Oh, I have the both. I have both. Oh, all right. Oh, beautiful. US one. Okay. Whoops. This is the UK one. I think I'm reading it until like 15 languages or something, which is very exciting. And if you like it, just do a review on Amazon. I keep forgetting to ask people to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, if you're in my audience and you read as much as I did, like leave the dang reviews on Amazon. They don't get it, even though Bezos kind of sucks. People don't like Amazon. But yeah, you can get it. They're other. I'm at Hoovlet on Twitter. There's a little link there that's not Amazon to get the book. Yeah. So I have a website, carrollhoven.com. I did not know that. So yeah, I'll be keeping up. But are you taking a break from writing books? Is this your one and only book? You have any plans to do something in the future? Or did you get it all out of your system? I don't know. It's hard. Writing a book is hard. And if you have a kid, you know, it's like it kind of interferes with the family time. So yeah. And he said not to do it again. I'll wait till he gets sick of me and then think about it. Yeah, there you go. Cool. Well, again, Carol, thank you so much. And Chris, thank you. And good luck with the podcast. You're cranking them out. Is it like every day or how many are you doing? It's been like, it's been like every day. So yeah, I read so much. Do you want to keep up that pace? I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. I got laid off earlier this month. So I have more time to focus on this stuff. So who knows? We'll see what the future holds. But yeah, so everybody follow me too. So you stay too. Yeah, follow the press. All right, good. All right, thanks, Carol. Thanks so much.