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De-Transitioner: Here’s What Her Doctors Didn’t Tell Her — Transcript

by Jordan B Peterson Clips · 2,495 words · 411 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00at the age of 12 I started experiencing
0:02some gender dysphoria and um
0:07I started seeing a therapist and I got
0:09the diagnosis and I started going
0:12on the path of medical transition at the
0:13age of 13 starting with blockers and
0:15then
0:16moving on to hormones and at 15 I got a
0:20double mastectomy but
0:22it turned out that it wasn't
0:25the best decision for me and I stopped
0:28transitioning at the age of 16
0:32okay so let's go back to when you were
0:35let's go back to when you were 12. well
0:37about when did you hit puberty
0:41um I had a fairly early puberty actually
0:43started um I started developing at
0:47at around the age of nine if not a
0:49little bit earlier
0:51okay okay and so
0:53um
0:54so at nine did that do you remember if
0:57that changed you emotionally
1:02yeah it did I
1:06it was really difficult for me actually
1:09okay so let me give you a little
1:12background you tell me if anybody's ever
1:13told you this before Okay so
1:16boys and girls
1:19experience before puberty experience
1:21approximately the same levels of
1:23negative emotion so that would be
1:25primarily anxiety and emotional pain or
1:28even sometimes susceptibility to
1:29physical pain and emotions like
1:31frustration and disappointment and shame
1:34and guilt and self-consciousness are all
1:36part of that what would you call it
1:38network of negative emotion now what
1:41happens to girls when they hit puberty
1:43and no one knows exactly why this is is
1:45that their negative emotion levels go up
1:48and so that on average women
1:51biologically mature women are more
1:54sensitive to negative emotion than
1:56biologically mature men and that kicks
1:58in at puberty now there's a variety of
2:01explanations for that but no one knows
2:03for certain and here's some of them okay
2:06so first of all
2:09sexual dimorphism and physical strength
2:11really
2:12emerges at puberty so boys and girls are
2:15pretty evenly matched physically but
2:17once puberty kicks in boys are taller
2:20stronger heavier and they're much
2:22stronger in terms of upper body strength
2:25so women are at a disadvantage
2:27physically in relationship to anything
2:30that might have to do with physical
2:31combat and so on those grounds it makes
2:34sense for women to be somewhat more
2:35sensitive to threat
2:37okay so then the another explanation is
2:39that
2:40women are more vulnerably sexually than
2:44men because they bear a much higher cost
2:46for reproduction obviously with
2:49pregnancy and protracted dependence of
2:51infants and so it makes
2:54so they're they're more vulnerable on
2:56the sexual front so it makes it it makes
2:58sense for them to be more sensitive to
3:00any threat that's associated with sexual
3:02activity and then the third explanation
3:04and there may be more is that
3:07women are charged generally speaking
3:09with the primary responsibility for
3:12infants and infants are extremely
3:14dependent and vulnerable and so you
3:17could make a case that adult women's
3:19nervous systems are actually adapted for
3:23the mother child dyad and not for the
3:26say emotional well-being of the
3:29individual woman
3:31and a woman needs to be threat sensitive
3:33because she's going to be taking care of
3:35infants and an extremely dependent
3:38children and it makes sense for her to
3:39be more cognizant of threats as a
3:42consequence even though the negative
3:44consequence of that for women and all of
3:47this is that women are much more likely
3:49to suffer from depression and anxiety
3:51than men
3:53cross-culturally it's between three to
3:55one and five to one now men have their
3:58Associated pathologies men are more
3:59likely to be anti-social for example and
4:01to abuse alcohol but women predominate
4:06on the negative emotion side and so
4:08and then I would say that's exacerbated
4:10you know if you hit puberty early
4:12because you have to deal with these
4:15complexities of physiological
4:16transformation at a very young age and
4:19so that's a difficult thing to handle
4:21emotionally and then there's the
4:24additional consequence of whatever
4:25hormonal uh turbulence might emerge as a
4:29consequence of the onset of puberty so
4:31it's very common for young women
4:33to experience high levels of negative
4:36emotion and for those emotions to be
4:39focused on their body because another
4:42thing that's characteristic of female
4:44negative emotion is that the
4:46self-consciousness associated with that
4:48tends to focus very particularly on body
4:52shame and self-consciousness and that
4:54might be because women are evaluated
4:57more rigorously on the basis of their
5:01physical appearance than men men are
5:03evaluated more harshly sexually let's
5:05say on the performance side you know
5:08with regard to socioeconomic status and
5:10so forth but women are definitely
5:12evaluated more harshly by men and by
5:15each other in terms of their physical
5:17attractiveness so that makes quite a
5:18complicated
5:20situation for girls who are making the
5:24transition into puberty and a lot of
5:25them are depressed and anxious and that
5:28and develop an intense focus on their
5:30body so I don't know how much of that
5:32was explained to you by your therapists
5:35or the medical professionals but that's
5:36all well that's all well-documented
5:39psychological and medical information
5:41yeah none of that was really explained
5:43to me
5:44by therapist or even growing up I mean
5:48even so that all
5:51every single part of what you said
5:52actually played a role in
5:54a lot of my childhood distress and my
5:57transition and eventually my
5:58de-transition actually you know um
6:01growing up I was a bit of a tomboy and
6:04also on the Spectrum and I didn't know
6:06this until I was diagnosed just last
6:08year but it did play a role in my my
6:11socialization and my difficulty getting
6:13along with other girls growing up and I
6:15found that I fit in more with the boys
6:16and when I hit puberty
6:19um
6:19it was a bit earlier than most of my
6:21peers and I got taller than them and
6:24oh yeah you know I I could keep up with
6:27the boys then and I had a lot of pride
6:28in that but as the years went on they
6:30started to get taller than me and
6:32outmatched me physically and this did
6:35bring on a bit of distress for me and um
6:39you know as I got older
6:41um socialization become began to become
6:43more
6:44sex oriented and
6:48I found it even harder to fit in with
6:50girls my age and but at the same time I
6:53was also starting to notice there's a
6:54divide between me and boys
6:57um in several ways and
7:00there was there was a lot of loneliness
7:01for me because on one hand I didn't
7:03really feel like I was I was one of the
7:04girls but on the other hand I was right
7:06losing my connection with some of my
7:08friends who I
7:10was close with and really really cared
7:13about
7:14and I also had some body image issues
7:16growing up as well um
7:20I often talk about how social media
7:22played a role in it but really it
7:24started from a very young age actually I
7:26mean I grew up I was born into a very
7:28image oriented very sex-oriented society
7:31and
7:32you know before I hit puberty I was
7:34looking forward to having a developed
7:36body and eventually going breasts
7:39and you know once I hit puberty and
7:45once I hit puberty I was
7:48it wasn't what I expected and I was
7:50really quite disappointed how I looked I
7:52was very very skinny I was on the
7:55smaller chested side and you know I grew
7:59up in an age where we kind of glorified
8:00bodies that are very
8:03um
8:04very voluptuous lots of Curves people
8:08often use a phrase like body I mean
8:10bottom heavy or hourglass
8:13pear-shaped things like that and I
8:15didn't look like that at all I was you
8:16know I was I was quite thin a little on
8:18the muscular side and if anything my
8:20shoulders were probably the widest point
8:23in my body
8:24and I kind of had a complex over this I
8:28I also liked having my hair shortened
8:29because of all this I felt like if
8:31anything I didn't really look like a
8:32girl at all I didn't like the other I
8:34didn't look like the other girls my age
8:35and I felt like
8:38I just wasn't pretty and that I would
8:40never
8:41really have New Year
8:43it's it's a very rare Adolescent and
8:48probably a particularly rare female
8:50adolescent who feels attractive in the
8:53early stages of puberty you know so
8:56everything that you experienced although
8:58you may have experienced it you know in
9:00an exaggerated manner for some of the
9:01reasons you laid out but everything you
9:03experienced is in some real sense par
9:05for the course for for a few years for
9:08the vast majority of people now you did
9:10add one additional issue which we could
9:12delve into a little bit which I think is
9:14relevant so you said that you're on the
9:16Spectrum and that you had an easier time
9:18communicating with boys than with girls
9:21and so here's something to know about
9:23that so
9:25the biggest reliable difference that's
9:28been documented between males and
9:30females and this becomes even larger in
9:33egalitarian societies by the way
9:35is orientation of Interest so women are
9:39higher in negative emotion and they're
9:41more agreeable and agreeableness is both
9:43compassion and politeness and although
9:47the difference between men and women
9:48isn't massive
9:50it's significant and it also maximizes
9:53an egalitarian society so it looks like
9:55it's biological but the biggest
9:57difference is in interest
9:59and uh boys males are more reliably
10:03interested in things
10:05and girls females are more reliably
10:08interested in people
10:10but people on the autistic Spectrum are
10:13also more reliably interested in things
10:17and so for example if you're extremely
10:19autistic the psychological uh phrase for
10:24for descriptive purposes is lacking
10:26theory of mind and so extremely autistic
10:29people have a hard time understanding
10:31what's going on in someone else's mind
10:34at all they they tend to be almost
10:36entirely thing oriented and there's a
10:39much higher preponderance of autistic
10:42symptoms among engineers and then if
10:44engineers in Silicon Valley for example
10:46male engineers and female Engineers
10:49often
10:50by statistical comparison often Mary and
10:54their children are disproportionately
10:55likely to be autistic and so the fact
10:58that you are tilted towards the the
11:02autistic end of the spectrum first of
11:04all that might just be an indication of
11:06uh neurological wiring that tilts you
11:09towards interest in things just so you
11:11know that so that's not necessarily
11:13autistic in and of itself it's just part
11:16of the normal variation in in what would
11:18you call it
11:19well in attentional orientation but the
11:22fact that you were
11:24on the Spectrum let's say and more
11:26interested in things is going to make it
11:28more difficult for you to communicate
11:29with girls because girls are reliably
11:32more interested in people and so and
11:35then on the image front you know this
11:37this ties in with
11:39the idea of self-consciousness so
11:42if you're on stage and you're talking to
11:44people and uh you become aware of
11:47yourself tends to make you nervous and
11:49sweat and to uh become uncomfortable to
11:52experience high levels of negative
11:54emotion and self-consciousness itself
11:57looks like a manifestation of negative
12:00emotion they're incredibly tightly
12:01linked
12:02statistically almost indistinguishable
12:05from one another and so what you see
12:07happening very often in girls because
12:09girls are self-conscious in relationship
12:12to their body because that's one of the
12:14primary ways they're assessed let's say
12:17for attractiveness and for social status
12:19is that that self-consciousness tends to
12:22take the form of intense preoccupation
12:24with body and with image
12:27and so that can be exacerbated by
12:30whatever social trends happen to be in
12:32place but it's it's a very deep-seated
12:33problem and so that's part of and also
12:36the fact that you hit puberty earlier is
12:38going to make that obviously is going to
12:41make that more complicated because it
12:42means you're not as
12:44neurologically or practically mature
12:47when you have to contend with all these
12:49issues
12:50so everything that you described in some
12:54sense could have been attributed to the
12:57difficulties of normative development
12:59just just so you know and this this
13:03proclivity of teenagers to develop
13:06depression and anxiety I want to take
13:07that apart for a minute too for
13:09everybody who's listening so imagine
13:11gender dysphoria okay so 10 years ago it
13:16was comparatively rare but not unheard
13:18of but imagine it has two components
13:20okay
13:21one is a tendency towards negative
13:24emotion so suffering anxiety depression
13:27frustration disappointment pain shame
13:29guilt self-consciousness all of that
13:32and then imagine there's a sec second
13:34part of it that's more specifically
13:36focused on discomfort with the body
13:39okay the first part of that is the bulk
13:43of it so if you look across
13:45forms of Psychopathology like mental
13:48illness
13:49the major segment is high levels of
13:54negative emotion like depression and
13:55anxiety
13:56and a secondary segment is the
13:59particular manifestation of that in your
14:01case in body dysmorphia
14:04and so and then the the claims that
14:08uninformed mental health professionals
14:11make that you're at elevated risk for
14:14suicide if you're gender dysphoric is
14:17erroneous because the elevated risk for
14:19suicide is actually a consequence of the
14:21of the general proclivity for depression
14:24and anxiety and not a specific
14:26consequence of the gender dysphoria or
14:29at least that's only a small
14:31subcomponent of it
14:33and so that's another thing to know is
14:35that
14:36the main clump of psychopathological
14:38manifestation mental illness is centered
14:41on heightened levels of negative emotion
14:43and of course that spikes for adolescent
14:45girls now you you may have been told
14:48this but perhaps you weren't so there
14:50are good long-term
14:52studies of children with gender
14:54dysphoria most of them were conducted in
14:57Toronto where I happened to be by a man
14:58named Ken Zucker and Zucker ran a
15:02a clinic for gender dysphoric kids way
15:04before this became part of the culture
15:06War let's say and he was a very straight
15:09and honest scientist a very good
15:11researcher not a political person and
15:13what he showed was
15:15what his Clinic showed many
15:16peer-reviewed studies was that
15:20gender dysphoria of the type that you
15:22described is relatively rare
15:24but if you leave kids alone
15:28till they're 19 or 18 80 to 90 percent
15:32of them settle into their biological
15:34identity
15:36although about 80 percent of them also
15:38are also homosexual in their orientation
15:42and so the pathway
15:43for him
15:45before this was all politicized was
15:47you'd have a child who was
15:49gender non-conforming temperamentally
15:52somewhat like you were
15:54you didn't have a pattern of female
15:56interests let's say and so and then
15:59prone to depression and anxiety and then
16:01that combination would produce this
16:03gender dysphoria and that would become
16:05quite intense around the dawn of puberty
16:08but if you just back the hell off and
16:11waited
16:12those kids would settle into their body
16:14but generally I'd adopted homosexual
16:17orientation

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