The Evidence Base Question

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

The evidence is that if you socially transition a small child, as in let them dress and present themselves the name and pronouns that suggest theyr members of the opposite sex, you are concretesing that cross sex identity. And then years will go by and they won't have really thought about their actual body, and puberty will seem like a looming disaster to them. Almost no one desists because puberty is what recons iles people, especially the gay ones, to their sex. We also know that if you go on puberty blockers, which are sold to parents as a paws button, you're highly likely, as in, like 97 98 %, likely,. to go on to cross ex

Biological sex is no longer accepted as a basic fact of life. It is forbidden to admit that female people sometimes need protection and privacy from male ones. In an analysis that is at once expert, sympathetic and urgent, Helen Joyce offers an antidote to the chaos and cancelling.

Shermer and Joyce discuss: What is a woman? What is a man? • conflicting rights: trans vs. women • sex vs. gender; who you identify as vs. who you are attracted to • cross-sex identification • gender dysphoria • social contagions • gender affirming care • puberty blockers, testosterone, hormone treatment • detransitioning • top surgery, phalloplasty, vaginoplasty • preferred pronouns: compelled speech ≠ free speech • trans sports • exclusive spaces, and more…

Helen Joyce is a senior staff journalist at The Economist, where she has held several positions, including Britain editor, Finance editor and International editor. Before joining The Economist in 2005 she edited Plus, an online magazine about mathematics published by the University of Cambridge. She has a PhD in mathematics from University College London. On Twitter, she is @HJoyceGender.