You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

Swell AI Transcript: 119. MaryCate Delvey FINAL.mp3
MaryCate Delvey:
Trans Maxing Manifesto is incels teaching one another how to transition into a woman because it'll expand your dating pool. And I will actually just read from the Trans Maxing Manifesto. There are many potential benefits from transitioning from male to female. sexual excitement from having a feminine body, access to the trans being dating pool, which means they think that they will be able to sleep with lesbians once they are seen and accepted as a woman and they really believe this, but it's not just lesbians that they're after. They go on talking about becoming male to female transsexual is a way better option than being involuntary celibate as a male. If you do not have autogynephilia as an incel, you can try to induce it. You can watch porn and imagine yourself as the female. They're trying to teach each other how to supposedly get more sexual partners by being perceived as female. I don't think it works out for most of them. They really do believe this because they are men and they think, oh women have it so easy. Men just want women because they don't think women are people. They think women are sexual objects.

Stephanie Winn: You must be some kind of therapist. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Mary-Kate Delvey. She is a female rights activist and satirist. She created the series Listen to Trans People, which exposes the dark nature of transgender ideology in their own words. Some of you might follow her on X or other social media platforms where she has this series. I've been following her for a while. Her satire is dark and cutting, and a lot of it is really just the words directly from the mouths of specifically trans-identified males with fetishes about the nature of their sexuality. Mary-Kate has gone to some of the darkest corners of the internet so that you don't have to. And so, Mary-Kate, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much, Stephanie. I'm happy to be here. And I'm happy to be amongst the first few of your long form interviews because you're great at creating short form content. And I think we have quite a needle to thread today because on the one hand, I really appreciate your dark, biting humor. And as some people know, I myself went through a phase of making a whole lot of memes. It just hit me last September, 2023. I went for a few weeks where I was making memes every single day. So I do appreciate satire and dark humor. At the same time, it causes some people to lose respect for me as a mental health professional or as an expert consultant or a deep thought content creator. And one of the reasons I wanted to speak with you today is that I know that amongst a bunch a portion of my audience includes concerned relatives, mostly parents of trans identified people. And I've often found that in this sort of strange work that I've created for myself as an unexpected expert of sorts in the rapid onset gender dysphoria and the trifecta of social contagion, which includes the gender ideology with the cluster B personality traits and the social justice extreme beliefs that, you know, in this world, I find myself sometimes educating parents about things that, why would they know these things? Why would they know about ideas like girl dick or lady dick? Why would they know about the idea of a transvian, right? Why would they know all of these really obscure things that people find in places on Reddit? And I say, I don't even go to those places at the internet. I just follow people on Twitter who do. And you are one of those people. You obviously have a very strong stomach. You're pretty fearless. And so I wanted to bring you on to try to thread that needle of, on the one hand, embracing the fact that some of this, we have to bring a spirit of humor to it and make light of it in order to cope with it. And also, it is a very serious subject. And I want your expertise as someone who's really looked into these dark places to illuminate for people who might be worried about some of the people who are posting on these Reddit forums, or more likely, the people who are reading those posts, who are influenced by them, who are affected by this type of content. So that's why I wanted to have you here. But before we get into your bizarre expertise, can you tell us how you ended up doing this sort of stuff?

MaryCate Delvey: Oh my goodness. So, I mean, it was many, many different things. I am a mom of daughters, and I do feel personally like if I had been younger, I would have been pulled into this cult of you can escape womanhood, you can escape all of the negative influences and trappings of femininity. You know, you can opt out. And I do feel like they would have gotten me. And luckily I am a little older than the cohort that generally is caught by this cult's net. But the other thing for me was I originally was kind of brought into all of this because I had decided during COVID, I was going to venture into being a porn creator. And, you know, I was a bartender and then all of a sudden out of work, I was very deep in kind of the mania aspect of anorexia at the time. You know, one of my kind of worst bouts with that and was like, okay, you know, I'm going to make, I'm going to make feminist porn. You know, I'm going to do a, a black and white artsy vampire period porn, you know, and I had a friend of mine who sent me some feminist literature and by Andrea Dworkin and was I did a very, very rapid 180. into, oh, you know, this may have been a choice for me, but it's not a choice for most women. And also being in that sphere, I had never been a consumer of pornography before deciding I'm going to be a creator and being in that realizing, oh, there's something very, very wrong with what the men in our society are consuming and what is popular with them and what is grabbing their attention and forming these addictions. And it's not something that I had ever personally experienced myself. And funny enough, when I had created the account, I joined TikTok and put the little black and orange symbols in my username, thinking that it would signify, you know, a Pornhub model. I didn't realize that was the super straight flag. I started getting a lot of content from the gender-critical movement. That's a funny way that I was brought into this sphere of gender-critical ideology. Sorry, I'm already lost.

Stephanie Winn: It's a lot. You're a Pornhub model and in your Pornhub bio, you have black and orange symbols

MaryCate Delvey: on my TikTok that I created.

Stephanie Winn: On your TikTok channel, you have black and orange symbols, which you think means that you're a Pornhub model. Right. And which you soon discover. I don't know any of this. This is all new territory for me. You soon discover that black and orange means super straight. And for those who've never heard this, what does that mean?

MaryCate Delvey: It means someone who is heterosexual who excludes trans-identified individuals from their definition of men or women.

Stephanie Winn: So, and just, okay, just for those who are completely naive about all of this, and we do have, you know, we have 50-year-old moms and dads who only got into listening to my podcast because their kids said they were trans. So, okay, so if you're heterosexual, that is not enough of a label. You are now super straight. You have to add on the super part to clarify if you're a woman that likes men, that you only like men who know they're men. That you don't, you know, women who think they're men don't count. Biological men. Yeah, okay. Alright, so unbeknownst to you, you're using symbols that correspond with super straight, which leads you into gender critical content when you thought you were getting into making porn. Correct.

MaryCate Delvey: Right. Yep.

Stephanie Winn: I know.

MaryCate Delvey: I had a very, very maze-looking introduction into this realm.

Stephanie Winn: Okay, so you're on TikTok, you start seeing gender-critical content. Meanwhile, you think that you're going to make feminist porn, and your friend introduces you to radical feminism, where you realize that by participating in pornography, you are participating in an industry that harms women.

MaryCate Delvey: Correct. Right. Because even though it felt like a choice for me, I just needed something to do as an out of work person during COVID. And I thought, oh, I will do this and this will be easy money. And I'm married to my partner, so there isn't a problem here. Very quickly realizing, oh, this is absolutely contributing to the atmosphere that women now have to live in. So very, very quickly did a 180 into being against pornography, against transgender ideology, whereas I feel like I started this adventure on a more liberal side of the spectrum. I do still feel that way. I have started here. I've maybe moved a bit, but I think the political ideology has moved a lot further than I have.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, sort of like that comic or that cartoon made by Colin Wright, the one that Elon Musk is known for having circulated. You know the one, right?

MaryCate Delvey: Right, right. I haven't moved all that much. Yeah. But the goalposts.

Stephanie Winn: So how did you discover, I guess, before you started making porn, And then quickly getting exposed to feminist and gender critical content through that avenue. What was your knowledge or familiarity or exposure with anything related to gender identity ideology?

MaryCate Delvey: Really only peripherally following the pushback with J.K. Rowling, which, you know, was right around the same time, midway through 2020, I think she came out you know, battling some of these allegations of her being transphobic. And she has always, always been one of my favorite authors. I absolutely love the Harry Potter series, the Robert Galbraith series. But you know, looking into it going, where is the problem here? What What is she saying that is so harmful and couldn't find a single thing? You know, everything that she was saying was absolutely honest and true to reality, but the pushback she received was so wild and violent, really, you know, which I've, I've done videos about responses just directly to her that they, they don't match up, you know, the, the vitriol she receives for saying things like, I believe trans people should be safe, you know, and then they say things to her, which I'm not sure I'm allowed to say on this podcast, but.

Stephanie Winn: Like death wishes, for instance.

MaryCate Delvey: Absolutely. Death wishes, rape wishes, you know, basically any horrible activity or word that you can think of. I'm sure she's heard it and I'm sure there's evidence of it still.

Stephanie Winn: And so, so then how did you discover everything that you've learned since then about these men with their fetishes?

MaryCate Delvey: There have been a lot of really great resources out there. There is a website, just beautiful kudos to whoever created it. It's called turfasaslur.com. They compile all sorts of screenshots and evidence repositories of just horrible things that transgender people or their activists are saying to anyone who pushes back against the ideology. And, you know, similar to what J.K. Rowling gets, death threats, rape threats. But, you know, from there, just going into their spaces, their forums, whether it's on Twitter or Reddit or, you know, even darker corners of the Internet, the things that they say to each other are so wildly different than the presentation I feel they give in terms of the media, where they say, you know, we're so vulnerable. We are so oppressed. And then you go into their own forums and their own spaces. And that's not what they're talking about. You know, what they're talking about is, you know, How do I tell off the women in the restrooms who say they're uncomfortable with me being there? You know, they very much know they're aware of their autogynephilia. They are aware of the fact that they arrived at this identity. because of their fetish, but the vision that they want presented to the world is that vision of them piggybacking off of the gay rights movement of, you know, we're a sexual minority, we're an oppressed minority, and that's absolutely not what I'm seeing, most especially in the male-to-female quote-unquote spaces.

Stephanie Winn: I want to sort of pause here because I know how much detail we might be going into or you know some of the dark places we might be about to expose and thinking about that you know let's say mom of a 20 year old boy who has been saying for the last year or two that he identifies as a girl and this mom hasn't watched porn in 30 years um and has no idea what the internet is like these days. She barely knows what Reddit is or how to use it. This mom is, you know, maybe listening to this podcast because she's trying to get insight into this gender issue and maybe has not even taken into consideration her son's porn use, what to speak of, what on earth it might have to do with his so-called gender identity, or how any of this matches up with the fact that he always seemed interested in girls, but also weirdly unmotivated to pursue girls. So just kind of like thinking about that listener, what do you feel like you need to say to help her brace herself for what she is about to hear, or to at least kind of get oriented to the lay of the land?

MaryCate Delvey: I would say, you know, take a deep breath because it is very dark. you know on the one hand you have these congregations of men talking to one another validating each other and you know if you don't know what gender euphoria is for so many of them that just means they're sexually aroused and they talk about this in their own spaces and they talk about how the Sissy porn is what dragged them into admitting that they were trans, cracking their egg, which is a phrase that they use to mean discovering that they're trans or admitting that they're trans. You know, I can't imagine what it would be like to be a parent of one of these young men because you have to do a lot of realization going, oh, they They don't see women as people, and that's got to include those moms, you know? And I think for many of them, they probably don't want to believe that, and they want to be quote unquote kind and supportive. You know, you love your children. I love my children. I would want them to be happy. But I think that for many of these young men, their idea of happiness is very much meeting the crosshairs of their sexual fetish. You know, does it give them a euphoria boner? That's what they say. This is who I am. This makes me happy. You know, so that has to be very hard to hear. for some of them, but I do think it's important to know because this isn't who they are. You know, this is something external that has influenced their child to make them think they are something they are not. And, you know, even if they are telling you, this is who I am, you know, changing everything about yourself is not being who you are. This is something that has been pushed on them from external influences, possibly since childhood. And they talk about that often. They say, you know, I was a latchkey kid and my parents didn't know that I started watching porn and transgender porn when I was nine, 10 years old. You know, they are very much aware of the reality of their condition, but I don't think the parents probably are as much.

Stephanie Winn: Okay, so some of this is going to be really hard to hear. Some of it might explain things that parents have been left wondering about for some time and some of it might not apply. If you are an ROGD parent listening, this might not apply to your child necessarily or this could… I would say in all likelihood, you know, the things that Mary-Kate has witnessed and exposed definitely represent influences that have affected your child, maybe not so directly. This might not be your child. This might be something that your child has seen, though. And the other side of the coin is that for girls, for ROGD girls, a lot of it is about escaping sexualization. And so this is two sides of the same coin. I saw it summarized really succinctly today. I wish I had the exact quote in front of me, but someone says that, you know, for the males, a lot of it is about the desire to be the object of sexual desire. And for the females, it's about the desire to escape being the object of sexual desire.

MaryCate Delvey: I think I have that here, actually. I think it was Jennifer Lee. Oh, yeah. A lot of being trans has to do with males wishing they were the objects of sexual desire and females wishing they weren't. Yep. Exactly. I saw that post today. Me too. Me too. And that hit home. I mean, I couldn't have put it any more succinctly.

Stephanie Winn: So, let's go ahead and start defining some of those terms. So, one that you brought up is euphoria. So, now you have done videos exposing this idea of the euphoria boner, and you've talked about the two-faced nature of gender ideology, where when it is expedient to do so, some of these people claim to be victims, claim to have very innocent desires, but then amongst themselves in what they believe are their safe spaces, like these Reddit forums, presumably parts of, I don't know, 4chan, I don't know what these websites are. Tumblr, all that, yeah. Within those communities where at least most of the people in the communities are other people like them, and then there's lurkers like you sneaking in and taking screenshots, but within what they think are their mostly private conversations, or at least anonymous conversations, they admit to a type of thinking that is predatory and fetishistic and perverted. So I want to go ahead and explain some of these terms. So can you explain first the concept of gender euphoria and then the concept of a euphoria boner?

MaryCate Delvey: I think they are synonymous, especially in the male, quote unquote, male to female cohort, things that bring them gender euphoria are things like lingerie or they talk about I got a euphoria boner when someone calls me she her when they use my pronouns when they use my female name that I made up for myself and then they explained it away to each other within these forums as oh that's very normal your body just doesn't know how to process happiness so it gives you an erection and they tell each other, this doesn't mean it's a sexual fetish. It just means that you're experiencing happiness and your body doesn't know how to interpret it correctly. So they tell each other, this isn't a sign that this is a fetish. You know, even when they're asking, is this a fetish? And the answer is clearly yes. So in my mind, these things are synonymous, at least, like I said, with that with the male cohort. You know, gender euphoria means they are sexually aroused and a euphoria boner is that state of being sexually aroused and somehow they are telling themselves, I am happy because this is who I am, not I am aroused because this is my fetish that I have, you know, been influenced by all these different things to have compounded.

Stephanie Winn: Well, and when you make that distinction, what strikes me is the narcissism in it. And we do know that there are really high rates of narcissism amongst these people. So when you think about sexual arousal, usually it's in response to another person, to the object of desire. And the happiness, if you will, is the happiness of the promise of fulfillment of getting closer with an other in whom you are interested. Right? And I think part of why it's probably so confusing for these males, especially the way that you describe it, is because it becomes so self-focused. So if it's self-focused, is it sexual in nature or is it not? Am I experiencing the joy of being myself? Well, yes, there is a sexual component, and that's why we do need to talk about so-called autogynephilia. because it's a misdirection of the sexual impulse toward the self, which is basically textbook narcissism. And I, you know, I've spoken in the past with Phil Illey, which I got a lot of pushback for, but I didn't say that just because I'm inviting someone on my podcast means I'm going to agree with them. I also don't bring people on my podcast. I did listen to that episode. Oh, really? Oh, well, then I want to know what you think about it. Yes, yeah. I mean, I don't bring people on my podcast to berate and humiliate them either. There's a certain level of decency you need to accept. extend someone if you're going to invite them anywhere, but I gave him the opportunity to explain his ideas. And I'm very curious to hear what you have to say about that. I also had a conversation with Joe Burgo, who is a therapist working with these young men, and he has a different take. He's also not nearly as critical of porn as I am, and he's coming from a gay male perspective and the perspective of an older clinician. So I feel like this conversation in some ways rounds out those ones because we're able to be a lot more direct about this and say, hey, there's this shadow And by the way, as women, we have a right to talk amongst ourselves with other women and talk about how to keep ourselves safe from predatory male instincts, whether they are objectifying and humiliating, targeting and harassing us, whether they want entry into our spaces, whether they want to harm us, or whether simply their narcissism itself is a threat. Because along with that comes entitlement to our spaces, comes Also, the sick arousal, right? When you talk about the euphoria boner, part of it is the arousal of, look at me, right? That I am being recognized for this thing I've told myself I am. But there's also, I think a lot of your videos expose sort of the sick thrill that some of these men get out of violating us and humiliating us.

MaryCate Delvey: So Genevieve Gluck, who runs Redux, the women's news magazine online, she posted, and I'm just going to read this in its entirety because I don't think I could have put it any better myself. She says, sissy porn is a type of pornography that involves men dressing up as women and enacting the fantasies they are aroused at seeing done to actual women, or in some cases, children. I think some tend to dismiss it as the name itself doesn't show the extreme nature of what it entails, which includes bondage and rape fantasies. The arousal that these men experience comes from embodying the various degrees of humiliation and torture that they enjoy seeing done to the subject they pretend to be. And I think this She goes on and it's an absolutely beautiful tweet, piece of writing, but I think she nails it where they are exposed to this thing. And so many of them talk about how it was the first type of orgasm or pornography that they experienced. And I think that's very telling that they saw this at an age where it was very influential and they latched on to it and then, you know, whether it was them seeking it actively or their algorithm on the internet pushing more of that towards them, you know, I think they are directed into this realm of seeing women objectified, degraded, and they really start to believe, well, oh, that's what women are. And that becomes their definition of what a woman is, is a woman is this pornified version of femininity, who is degraded, who is humiliated, and then they enact that out in the world. And that's why you hear them saying things like, Oh, you know, at least rapists view their victims as women. That's better than TERFs do, you know, because they feel validated by negative male sexual attention. And again, I think that must be very hard for parents of these young men to hear. But I would encourage them to go read some of the things that they themselves are writing, because it is so very different. than what we see pushed in the mainstream media.

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MaryCate Delvey: Well, you know, and I think that that kind of influence and, you know, especially for young men where their sex drive is so overwhelming at those ages, you know, to internalize, this is what a woman is, you know, a woman is someone who is treated subserviently, especially sexually. They really, they try to embody that, you know, and they will tell each other things like, you know, my version of a woman is submissive and, you know, what makes me a woman, what was it, which one of them might have been Andrea Long Chu saying, getting fucked makes you female because fucked is what a female is. You know, they absolutely are internalizing these things. And I'm not saying that it's, you know, their fault that they are encountering these things. I absolutely think that we need to address the porn industry. And like I said, I had no idea the kinds of things that were out there because I myself was not that target audience. I was not a consumer of it. But it is absolutely so problematic. And they're coming to this view of women And that's how they treat women, but not only is that how they treat women, that's their literal definition of woman in their head is a pornified, abused, subservient human being. And we see this manifest in every aspect of trans rights, right? You know, we see them shouting at women, all over the world and, you know, throwing things at them and attacking them. I think there was an older woman who had her jaw damaged, you know, but it, whether or not it's kind of your vanilla pornography, or it's your, you know, transgender specific, sissy hypnosis porn pornography. All of this is contributing to the view of women in the world.

Stephanie Winn: Earlier you mentioned that you had listened to my interview with Phil Illey, so what did you think of that conversation?

MaryCate Delvey: So first of all, I don't believe that it's a sexual orientation.

Stephanie Winn: I think, you know, as much of a- Oh, and by the way, for people who don't know what we're talking about, we're talking about autogynephilia.

MaryCate Delvey: Correct, yes. So, Phillily stated that, you know, as an autogonophile, he believes that it's more of a sexual orientation than a fetish. I do not agree with that, because it doesn't involve other people. It involves how you see yourself, and you are quote-unquote getting off to yourself. It has nothing to do with the partner that you are with, which to me would be the definition of your orientation. You know, if you are a homosexual, you are oriented towards people of the same sex. If you're heterosexual, it is people of the opposite sex. If you are an autogynophile, that is entirely to do with you are aroused at yourself. And it goes back to the narcissism that you were speaking of. And Again and again in these forums, they love to talk about masturbation. Again, I'm sure these parents do not want to hear this, but that is a huge topic of conversation is, you know, how can I masturbate like a girl? And how can I masturbate to feel more like a woman? And it's because they're not participating in sexual activity with other human beings. It is entirely with themselves and they have conversations about this because they all experience that. You know, that is a huge part of what they do in terms of this identity is, you know, it's all focused on themselves. And I have a 13 year old who currently speaks only in memes. And one of her favorite things to say is touch grass. And I know probably as a therapist, that's not something you can say to people, but I wish it was because, you know, I think it goes back to you have to connect with the world and other people and not just yourself. You know, I think that connecting with other things is so, so powerful. And I know you've done a lot of talks about psychedelics and how that relates to, you know, getting these realizations of the world at large. I don't know how we how we put that on a larger scale to help cure this, but I wouldn't be against it for sure. But no, absolutely. It is so navel-gazing and, you know, here is how I see myself. Now you need to see me this way too. Because it validates them, which gives them sexual euphoria. You know, and they can't divorce this idea of sexual affirmation from personal identity. You know, I think they believe on some level that being sexually aroused makes them happy, therefore this is who they are because it makes them the happiest. And there's never any conversation or thought of, well, maybe I'm a 23-year-old man with a very high sex drive and maybe I just have a fetish for wearing my mother's lingerie. And I have since I was eight years old and they talk about things like this too. So it is wild to me that We pretend like this is an orientation, this autogynephilia, rather than what it is, which is an externally derived fetish. I do hope it can be unlearned, to be honest with you. I think it is learned. I really do. And I think that, you know, the fact that we have de-transitioners who come out and speak very bravely about this, I do give your guests credit for coming out and talking about it, because It must be very, very difficult to do, but I don't think it's a sexual orientation. I think it is entirely a navel-gazing fetish.

Stephanie Winn: Well, and you raised a very important point there that I want to make sure is not lost on people who maybe are hearing or realizing this for the first time, that in a certain subset of these cases, the sexual fetish is about violating other people. And that's not limited to rape. It's, you know, if you think about that with the clear-cut lines of that some people want to sexually assault other people, yeah, that's a narrow subset of the population. But we're talking about something that is more along the lines of exhibitionism, right? Exhibitionism being people who get a sexual thrill out of showing themselves and their sexual activity inappropriately to unconsenting strangers. So we're talking about this I demand that you validate me and therefore I'm bringing you into my sexual fetish. So whether you are, you know, whether this other person in this case is the victim of sexual assault, as in the most extreme cases, whether they're a victim of sexual harassment or exhibitionism, those are more clear-cut cases, but we're also talking about the man who gets a sexual thrill from using women's locker rooms, bathrooms, and from violating others' boundaries in general. And I would encourage people to pay attention to the, what is, the smile that's called the duper's delight. If you're not already following Tanya Marshall on X, she's an Australian psychotherapist who studies autism, body language, and this gender nonsense, and she will point out how there are certain facial expressions, body language, and things like that that reveal that someone is getting a thrill out of pulling one over on other people. And we have to remember that the type of people who experience pleasure from violating, tricking, humiliating, or invading other people are sadistic and that not everyone is sadistic. So if you are a person who does not have a sadistic drive or if that sadistic drive is just that tiny 1% of 1% of you that creeps up in your worst moments, like when your boss gave you the hardest day ever and you have a little fantasy of choking him on the way home and that happened to you like twice in your life. That's a normal person's experience of sadism, right, is under extreme stress. You will have a fantasy of hurting someone occasionally. If you're a normal person, that's within the realm of normal. But when we're talking about sadism, we're talking about people who are wired and oriented relationally in a way that is different, in a way where It appeals to them to get pleasure out of hurting or humiliating or deceiving other people in the same way that it appeals to you to think about treating yourself to a donut after work, or it appeals to you to think about getting that nice new sports car, right? That same, ooh, wow, wouldn't that be nice? Or it appeals to you to think about having sex with your loving spouse. Right? That's the sort of pleasure that these people get out of knowingly violating the boundaries of other people in a way that they know is either illegal or should be illegal or would make other people deeply uncomfortable. And so when we talk about people being brought into others' fetishes, this is what we're talking about. I do believe I had an experience once, and I can't confirm this, But I was in a locker room once, and there was someone who I believed was male, who looked very dolled up, but, you know, I saw the shoulder to hip ratio, and, you know, and now, unfortunately, women like you and I, Mary-Kate, have to, you know, we have to check ourselves. I don't know about you, maybe I'm speaking on your behalf, but I find I have to check myself now, unfortunately, because there are certain proportions that are more masculine. And now I feel badly because I end up judging my fellow women who just happen to be women with broad shoulders and narrow hips. I'm doing a double take. Or who happen to be tall or have square features. And I'm like, it's not their fault. You know? Like, that's probably an actual woman. But this person, the shoulder width and the hip shape was like, very like, that You'd be hard-pressed to find a woman shaped like that no matter how much… Your eyeballs were doing the chromosome test, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I saw this person… I'm gonna… Supposing it was a he, I'm going to say he, taking a picture of himself in the locker room, which you're not supposed to do in any locker room. In every locker room in the United States, there is a sign on the wall saying, do not take pictures or videos in here, right? And honestly, there was a woman in my locker room trying to video herself doing something once. And I was like, no, excuse me, you see the sign? But this man took a picture of himself with the showers in the background. And it's not like you could see any naked people there. But I was like, is this going to end up in one of those forums, the places that Mary Kate looks, you know, with with the people who, because I know you've seen those pictures of the men who are gloating, who are like, haha, look what I got away with. Nobody can stop me. That's what we're up against.

MaryCate Delvey: Yeah. And a question for you. You said that you said something to the woman who you saw filming in the locker room, but did you feel a lot more hesitation and discomfort with the idea of saying something to who you thought was a man in the locker room?

Stephanie Winn: Isn't that interesting? Yeah. There were several dynamics at play here. I mean, the first was that the man incident happened first, and it was I think it was after that incident that I was like thinking about what do I do if I see someone whipping out a camera again, you know? So partly it gave me time to think about it. It was also so quick. It was like this person took a picture and then left.

MaryCate Delvey: Okay.

Stephanie Winn: Whereas with the woman who was obviously a woman and I think I was just in a certain kind of mood that day and also she was taking the time to set up her selfie stick so that she could video herself. I think I've also just seen all these videos on the internet of people filming themselves at the gym just to be paranoid about people watching them. I think I was just in the mood to say no.

MaryCate Delvey: But just to that point, I see a lot of posts of these men saying, oh, I've been using the women's room for years. No one's ever had a problem with it. They accept me as a woman. And I think that they're mistaking women's fear of speaking up against what's clearly a mentally ill man as our consent, whereas it's really just, oh God, I have to get out of here without upsetting a psychotic man. You know what I mean? Exactly. And if they do, sorry, go ahead. Yeah. No, I just, you know, you see a man dressed up as, you know, his idea of what a woman looks like, which more often than not, you know, they themselves joke around about the trans woman starter kit is thigh highs and a leather skirt. And, you know, I mean, it's it's fetish gear. Right. And so I think that, you know, when we encounter these men in public, just As women who have grown up female in the world, we go, oh, this is not a normal man. This is not a well man. And most importantly, this is not a man who has any respect for women. It sets off our red flag alerts and we go, Our fear response comes up, right? You know, but they take this as consent, because we don't want to challenge them in our own spaces. And, you know, there perpetuates the problem of women are going to self exclude from our own spaces. But no, I, I'm right there with you.

Stephanie Winn: Well, and, and, again, we can look at the sort of shifting goalposts and the two, the two faced nature. of these people, because you say that they take our fear and our silence as our consent. But supposing our fear were visible, would they respond to that fear with sympathy? Would they say, oh, we're sorry, we don't mean to make you uncomfortable? Or would they mock and deride us and tell us that we deserve to feel all of the feelings as punishment for our failure to comply with their demands.

MaryCate Delvey: That's the bingo right there, and they talk about it all the time, you know? You know, oh, you know, cis lesbians who reject me because I'm a trans woman deserve to be sexually assaulted, you know, things like that, you know, any pushback against what gives them their little euphoria boner is met with rage and violence and you know I do think it really comes back to the pornography influence because you see and I'm sure you know better than I do but you know you see the the temporal lobe differences in someone with addiction, you know, that leads to impulsiveness and aggression and lack of self-control. And I think, unfortunately, that is a large part of the cohort that we're dealing with are young men who have created these deficiencies in their own brains because of this. So I, you know, I am very outspoken. I am very You know, I've absolutely been in restrooms where I've heard male voices and have said out loud, you know, isn't this the women's room? And I go and tell the bartender, you know, hey, there's there's a bunch of men in the women's room, you know, and I don't really care how they identify. But, you know, I think that I am. I don't know, just a lot more open to open to I am I am okay with the challenge. You know, I have no problem stepping up to these men because I see them for what they are. And I think I like you said, I have delved into some very dark sewage filled corners of their own spaces. And I know why they're there and I know what's happening when they're there. But I think a lot of women don't and they think, you know, I don't want to upset them or, you know, oh, I don't want to be labeled as transphobic. And, you know, they're a lot more timid about it. And I totally understand that. First of all, you know, I I wouldn't ever knock a woman for not reporting a man in a space out of fear, but I don't think it's going to end until we start doing that.

Stephanie Winn: We've defined some terms earlier. You mentioned cracking the egg, the trendy euphemism for a person so-called discovering they're trans. You explained the concept of euphoria boners and sissy porn. Can we talk about the phrase genital preference? Can you define this for people who don't know this phrase?

MaryCate Delvey: Well, it's something that trans people are allowed to have, but if anyone else has it, they're transphobic. I see. Basically, it's a way to circumvent either heterosexuality or homosexuality. You know, they believe that if you are a quote unquote cisgender lesbian. So if you are a woman who is sexually attracted to other women, but you're not attracted to men who claim they're women, then you have a genital preference. And that means you're transphobic. But they love to talk about how they have sexual preferences or genital preferences. And, you know, because they are so narcissistic, it's not a problem when they do it. It's only a problem Really, you know, when women do it, it seems I don't see that kind of aggression towards heterosexual men from trans identified men as I see from the trans men who are trans identified men towards lesbian women who won't affirm them. They talk about how, oh, I just really want to date a cisgender lesbian woman. It would really affirm me as a woman and as a lesbian. And they will talk about how, oh, I went on a date with another trans man. So it's two men who think they're women and You know, they'll say, oh, you know, this is a confession post. I just felt like I was having sex with a man the whole time. But, you know, if any one of us were to say that, it would be social suicide. It would be, you know, this person is transphobic and yada, yada, yada. I guess I don't know if I defined it. It is someone who, or a genital preference is basically your sexuality, right? It's just their term for it, and it's a problem in their world.

Stephanie Winn: So, I've been thinking about this a lot. I mean, anyone who's been around the gender critical world long enough will know that we've talked about how rapey this is. The idea that anyone should ever be guilted, manipulated, or coerced into feeling like They owe it to anyone to cajole themselves into wanting to be sexual with people they are not naturally inclined to be sexual with is just so rapey. And something I've been thinking about a lot is, and I did this poll on X yesterday and haven't looked at it in a while so I haven't seen how many votes have come in, I think the votes were pretty all over the place, though. Did you see the one I'm talking about? I asked out of all the people who call themselves queer, which is this umbrella term that used to be considered a slur that a lot of gay people still don't appreciate, but queer is this, you know, just general label that a lot of people have applied to themselves, especially at least in really liberal parts of the country, especially lesbian women stopped calling themselves lesbians or calling themselves queer. So out of all the people who call themselves queer, what percentage go around secretly, quietly, guilty and ashamed of their so-called genital preferences. In other words, which portion of these people either, you know, like men or like women or have any sexual boundaries whatsoever that they would like to be able to honor but feel guilty about their sexual preferences. Because I think that what we're going to discover in the coming decades, as more people get comfortable coming forward about the harms of this crazy time and this crazy ideology, is that there are a lot of people who engaged in sexual acts that they did not want to engage in. And so I polled Twitter, like, what portion of people do you think have this guilt and shame? They call themselves queer, but they have all this guilt and shame. about their so-called genital preference, and then if so, how do you think that impacts their behavior toward other people? Because I would speculate, you know, being a psychologically-minded person here, that a lot of the vitriolic, guilt-tripping behavior that people like you and I, who have the guts to say no to any of this stuff, are on the receiving end of, that maybe partly that is projected. If any of these people, you know, are not completely remorseless sociopaths, but are instead vulnerable people caught up in a dangerous ideology, walking around feeling like they're not allowed to, you know, not be interested in a penis that calls itself a vagina or vice versa, you know, like, what is that doing to people psychologically? And how is that impacting their behavior towards others?

MaryCate Delvey: I think we're seeing a lot of that in the young lesbian population who have decided that they are going to transition into being quote unquote trans men. You know, I see a lot of young women who they really are probably just young lesbian women saying, oh, well, I like women. I don't conform to these you know, gender stereotypes, I must actually be a trans man, you know, but they're not. There's one in particular that I'm thinking of that I'm not going to bring up because we have signed a truce with one another, but, you know, she is just very clearly a lesbian woman who has become caught up in this queer ideology and she has decided to transition in order to not be a lesbian, you know? And I don't think her sexual preferences have changed. Then again, in this male-to-female cohort, one of the things that they do like to talk about is, oh, have hormones changed my sexual orientation? A lot of them will say, I didn't think I was into men until I started taking estrogen, and now I really just want to get railed by a guy. And I think a lot of it comes back to this internalized homophobia where, you know, they think, oh, I'm not a gay man. I'm a straight woman, right? But, you know, like you said, a lot of it is very rapey. It is, if you won't have sex with me, you are basically a racist. You're a sexual racist, right? You know, you're not seeing me as a person. You're seeing me for my genitals. And I hear this one a lot, like, you're reducing people to their genitals. You're defining people by their genitals. But you know, your genitalia is part of what makes up your sex. And so it just really comes back again and again and again to homophobia, doesn't it? Where, you know, you you're not allowed to be a woman attracted to women if you reject men, because that hurts these men's feelings or or vice versa. You know, I think there there are a lot of young women caught up in this who believe that they're gay men, you know, and they They write these very angry posts about, you know, how cis gay men are transphobic because they won't consider boy pussy or bussy, you know? But, you know, again, it comes back to they're allowed to have these quote-unquote genital preferences, but the rest of the world is not, you know, and it's all very me, me, me. It's very narcissistic. And, you know, again, it is all centered around what is sexually bringing them pleasure. It has nothing to do with, you know, your goals in life or other things that make up identity, right? Like, you know, where are you from? And, you know, what is your culture? It just all comes down to does anyone want to do me? Or who wants to do me? Or who do I want to do? I don't know. It's wild to me.

Stephanie Winn: This is a cohort of people that is extremely neurotic when it comes to sex because this generation this younger generation for one which i know we're not all talking about younger people because a lot of the males transitioning are middle-aged but you know a lot of the younger people are really sexually inexperienced right and going through these trans procedures narrows your dating pool by about a factor of 10. I would not doubt that. There's been a study that showed across all walks of life, including other trans people and people who identified as being under the LGBTQ plus umbrella, that even amongst that population, that most people don't want to date trans people. I think Part of, I think part of what's so sad about how all the people who've been duped into this, I mean, yeah, it's hard to have empathy for the ones who do have predominantly sadistic personalities, and we do need to name that element because it's there, and a lot of people don't want to look at it. But out of all the people who, you know, could potentially have had a decent life, who have gotten caught up in all this naively, that they've been given this promise of acceptance and inclusion, they've been given all this love bombing, all this, we're your family now, you're gonna be so special, all of these messages, and they naively think that that same trend is gonna continue when it comes to their dating options. And boy, are they wrong. And that is, I think, so sad for so many of these people. They have been misled. And if you look at the Trans Maxing Manifesto, for instance, I haven't read the whole thing. Oh, yes. Oh, I did. Oh, you have? Oh, then tell us about it. All 71, 72 pages.

MaryCate Delvey: Okay.

Stephanie Winn: Well, I'm going to ask you to explain it in a moment. But I will just say for now, page one of the Trans Maxing Manifesto says, it's basically a list of reasons that your life, you sad young man, will be better if you become a woman. And it's basically geared towards incels. So, and one of those reasons is women are pursued more. You'll have more dating opportunities. Now, while it's true that actual women are pursued more than actual men, and there are good reasons for that, That does not mean that a man who tries to make himself into a woman is going to be more desired than he would have as a man, right? But they're actually young men. believing this and throwing away their chances, throwing away their chances at any romantic future, which is sad. And it also sets them up not only to be abusers, and we've talked about the abusive aspects of some of this, but also to be victims of abuse. Because one thing I've learned from experience as a therapist is that the people with the lowest self-esteem and the fewest opportunities, the people who think that nobody's going to love them, sure are vulnerable to that one person coming along saying I'll be the one to love you, right? Right. So, please, tell us about the trans maxing manifesto.

MaryCate Delvey: Okay. Okay. So the Transmaxxing Manifesto is a document created by transgender former incels, which is an involuntary celibate male who, you know, they're men who say, oh, I'm 5'8", I'm too short for women to want, now I hate women, and it's women's fault that I'm not having any sex. I mean, they really their whole identity kind of centers around this. And I will also mention this kind of thinking is one of the things that a lot of mass shooters have in common is this hatred of women because women won't look at them or sleep with them. But the Trans Maxing Manifesto is incels teaching one another how to transition into a woman because it'll expand your dating pool. And I will actually just read from you. From the Trans Maxi Manifesto, there are many potential benefits from transitioning from male to female. Sexual excitement from having a feminine body. Access to the transbian dating pool is number two, which means they think that they will be able to sleep with lesbians once they are seen and accepted as a woman and you know, they really believe this. And it's not just lesbians that they're after. You know, they go on talking about, let's see, becoming male to female transsexual is a way better option than being involuntary celibate as a male. If you do not have autogynephilia as an incel, you can try to induce it. You can watch porn and imagine yourself as the female. So they're trying to teach each other how to supposedly get more sexual partners by being perceived as female. I don't think it works out for most of them, but they really do believe this because they are men and they think, oh, women have it so easy, you know, men just want women, you know, because they don't, they don't think women are people. They think women are sexual objects. And so they believe that if they transform themselves into a mimicry of a sexual object, they will get sexual activity. And there are a lot of them out there. And that's something else these parents might not know is, you know, they might not even be transitioning because of autogynephilia. It may be a way where they're being told, oh, you're going to be able to expand your dating pool. But, you know, like I didn't even know there had been studies done on it where it showed that it shrunk your dating pool. I mean, I would have just guessed that messing with your, you know, surgically or hormonally messing with your genitals or your urinary system. I mean, I see so many urinary problems, especially in the surgeries for both men and women. And as someone with, I've got chronic kidney disease and kidney stones and like, you know, I can't imagine having a catheter for a year and a half. Like that sounds absolutely awful and that's going to ruin your sex life, you know, and they don't talk about these things in their manifestos. They don't talk about how you're going to turn people off. But I think, maybe I'm wrong, but I think it comes down to healthy people are looking for healthy sexual partners. And someone who believes they're the opposite sex, even if they haven't pursued hormonal or surgical alterations, you're going to recognize that as someone who is not mentally healthy. Right? Like you're going to see that person and go, oh, that's that's just on a biological level. That's not someone that I feel comfortable engaging in possible reproduction with because they're not coming off as a healthy partner.

Stephanie Winn: in any way. Yeah, and we can consider the relational dynamics there too. So, you know, my work, it's a very interesting role that I've created for myself here, given that now the majority of my work consists of providing consulting to ROGD parents who are lost in all this, or maybe they're not lost, maybe they've read all the studies and all the books, but they're not any better at communicating with their kid and they need strategies for communicating with their kid that take into account the child's developmental stage, their sense of moral and intellectual superiority. There's a lot of factors that need to be taken into account if you're going to communicate effectively with people who are in this cult. And here I have this very interesting niche that I've carved out for myself, and I hear detailed stories about the observations that these parents have about, among other things, the relationships that their children are in. And, you know, what's coming to mind is a story that I heard about where the daughter identified as a boy and had a boyfriend who identified as a girl. Of course, there's a lot of these relationships. And what I was really picking up on after listening to a while, listening for a while to the parents' observations is I was like, oh, the daughter is just dying deep down for someone to tell her she's beautiful. She's doing everything that she can to undermine her beauty. She's cutting her hair short, dying it all kinds of colors, piercing her face, you know, all this kind of stuff that they do. but I could tell through the behavior that the parent was reporting, I was like, you know what I think is happening? Is I think the daughter has to spend all damn day telling her boyfriend how pretty she is. That's what's going on here, is there's this reversal because the young man has deluded himself into thinking that what's going to bring him happiness and fulfillment is to be treated as a sexual object and told how pretty he is and catered to and of course it's going to be a bottomless pit and he's never going to be satisfied and he's going to continue demanding more and more affirmation and praise. because A, there's a fundamental problem of narcissism here, and B, that is not what satisfies any soul, especially a person who is male, because regardless of how much he might attempt to escape the reality of his maleness, at the end of the day, as a man, he's only gonna be satisfied by the things that satisfy a man, and that includes self-respect. And if you're not behaving in a self-respecting way, and you're not pursuing meaningful goals as a man, you will never experience true satisfaction. Now, you can tell yourself that you're a woman, and that your satisfaction comes from being seen and affirmed as a woman, and you can spend all of your time pursuing those dang euphoria boners, but you're never really gonna be happy. So here, then you get a girlfriend, and you make the whole relationship about her pretending she's your boyfriend and acting like it's her job to make you feel like a pretty girl. And, and, you know, and it's like the relationship in the end, still each of them is very much fulfilling the problematic patterns typically associated with their sex where the girl who thinks she's a boy is doing the same thing I've seen countless young women do who aren't deluded about their sex. She's mothering him. She's mothering him. And as a therapist to women in their 20s and 30s for much of my life, I've seen that dynamic so many times. Why? Because I don't care what your political, religious, or philosophical beliefs are, from an evolutionary perspective, You know, our ancestors as women had babies by the time they were 20 and 10 of them by the time they were 30. So the instinct, the maternal instinct is there as a woman in your 20s, whether you're conscious of it or not, whether you want children or not. And if you don't have a way to channel that, like, you know, pouring your heart and soul into your work or a pet or just working on having actual babies to take care of, if you don't have a way to channel your maternal instinct and it grabs ahold of you unconsciously, you will baby the heck out of your boyfriend. And I've seen that dynamic so many times. And then the boy is playing the, you know, the Peter Pan syndrome, right? And maybe, God willing, he finds himself by 40, but there's nothing feminine about his behavior and there's nothing masculine about hers.

MaryCate Delvey: What do you make of so many men waiting until their female partner is pregnant or has a young child to quote unquote crack their egg and come out as trans, like from a psychological perspective, do you feel like it's them going, oh, that mothering attention is about to be taken away from me? I need to, you know, where do you think that comes from? Because I feel like this is a pattern that I see in these spaces again and again and again, where it's like, hey, is this a bad time to tell my wife? She's nine and a half months pregnant, and I told her I'm trans, and she didn't take it very well. What is happening here? Because I see it again and again in these pivotal, life-changing moments in life, whether it's in their 20s or middle age, but what do you make of that?

Stephanie Winn: I think that's a really good guess, Mary Kate. And I don't know any such circumstances in an up-close-and-personal way the way that I know… There are a lot of things that I have very particular opinions about because of, you know, I've been a therapist for 11 years and I consult now exclusively with ROGD parents and I hear detailed dynamics of trans-identified youth and their behaviors. So a lot of my strong opinions are coming from those things that I know people's stories about. I don't know any particular people who have been through that on either side of it, male or female, so I can only speculate, but I think that is a really good guess and I would not be surprised in situations like that if the man was actually pretty narcissistic the whole time and self-absorbed because there are so many stories that, you know, I could tell you but that anyone with enough life experience as a mental health counselor could tell you of times that, you know, women were pretty indulgent of their male partner's irresponsibility and dependency up until they had babies. And then, suddenly, the woman's maternal instinct is directed toward a being that actually completely deserves it. And she realizes, I have been babying a 30-year-old. He actually doesn't have an excuse. Like, he should be a man by now. Right? So her instincts flip, and suddenly the same behavior that she's been so tolerant and indulgent of, now she has no more patience for it. And it's like the man better man up quick or they're heading towards divorce. So that is a classic story. And and I don't mean to say that in a way that casts. all the blame and judgment on the man in every single situation where there's been marital conflict following the birth of a baby. I know that postpartum depression is real and, you know, having a baby places stresses on the couple. It doesn't mean that every man has just been completely immature and the woman responsible. But I'm saying that this is a bit of a pattern that does exist to varying degrees in some couples. And I wouldn't be surprised if what you're saying is correct. I think there's some really interesting psychological dynamics at play. Like, another one that I've seen that does mirror some of what you were just describing is, you know, for a trans-identified male where he had, let's say, a very close relationship with his mother growing up, and then something happened where the bubble burst. You know, something changed in the family situation where it felt from his little boy experience like he was just like kicked out of heaven like it was me and mommy and my little bliss bubble and then boom everything's disrupted and then he spends the next several years longing for that bliss state again and maybe he gets into some relationships with women where he's like super dependent and needy and and too much for them, and then he decides he's a woman. And it's partly because of that, that he has always longed to get back that state of complete merger with the feminine, which is appropriate when you are a baby. And the mistake that a man has made in this case is to think that what satisfied you as a baby and a little boy even, which is just to be wrapped up in the bliss of your mother's love, that that is what's going to satisfy you as a man, when actually, no, it's not. As a man, you're so much more capable than that. And what's going to satisfy you is to have self-respect and the respect of other people through developing a solid sense of identity and competence. And as an individuated person, to then be able to be in an I-Thou relationship with a woman where you get to come and go from that state of bliss and merger, where yes, you love a woman properly, sometimes you get to experience sexual pleasure with her and feel for a moment like you are one and get a tremendous amount of satisfaction about that or from that, but then be able to take a step back from it again, experience yourself as a unique individual, have some self-respect, and go do some meaningful work to provide for that woman who you love. Like, that's what's going to satisfy you as a man. Right? But some men, I think, wrapped up in the trans stuff, they have this fantasy that this state of merger, this state of bliss with the mother, with the feminine, that satisfied them in infancy is going to satisfy them in adulthood, and it's just a fantasy.

MaryCate Delvey: Do you see in your consulting work a lot more ROGD young women than young men? Because I, you know, just talking to everyone that I know, including my parents who, you know, they have friends who have children or grandchildren, and it's almost always young women now who I have observed getting caught up in this. Like I said, they would have gotten me. I was a young woman who was very much a tomboy, wrapped up in eating disorders. I was in that cohort of emo cutting. You know what I mean? I have a lot of experience in therapy on the other side of it from where you are, but I'm like, oh, they would have gotten me.

Stephanie Winn: No, I also, they would have gotten me too, but you know what's interesting is that I feel like just in the last year, it's flipped where it's now at least half parents of boys coming to me and I don't know. I mean, it could be a sampling error. I'm just one person. Anyone can go ahead and book a discovery call, link in bio, link in show notes, anyone who wants to meet with me and I get a few of those a week. Depends, like if I'm in the news, then I'll get like a dozen a week. Or if I have a particularly popular episode of my podcast that's particularly on subject, then I'll get a bunch of discovery posts.

MaryCate Delvey: I want you to work, but I'm also horrified at how many people are like, oh my God, this is my life, you know? I know.

Stephanie Winn: Well, it's a bizarre situation because, you know, I believe that my work should solve the problem and render me out of a job with regard to this particular issue. I, you know, there, there's a lot of, there's a lot of drama in the gender critical community. And out of all the people calling each other grifters and all this stuff that's going on, I just try to stay out of it. Some people accuse some other people of, you know, like needing gender ideology to keep going in order for them to have a job. And I don't know how valid any of those claims really are. I certainly don't want that to be my life. I've ended up a specialist accidentally. I'd love to go back to doing therapy with the general population, although at this point I have to put like a big Disclaimer, in my informed consent, like, your therapist is also a podcast host who has a reputation and you might want to know what that is so that you don't have any shockers down the line if, like, you're a year into therapy, you listen to my podcast, you realize I'm not the person you imagined I was, like, that could be an issue. But, I mean, I have enough faith in my abilities that… You know, if I can solve this problem so that people don't need to hire me for this anymore, like, I will gladly move on to another problem. I think people have enough respect for my problem solving abilities. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to work myself out of a job with regard to this particular issue. But to answer your question, though, I feel like it's been maybe mostly parents of boys coming to me lately. And again, I don't know how representative that is. but apparently I'm not the only one saying this. I don't remember asking Joe Burgo about it when I talked to him, but I have heard through the grapevine that he had said to someone that He also observed the same thing again sampling error because people choose him for their boys But still I think in some ways it's like the girls caught on first and you know Abigail Schreier's book was really on point when it came out and now I feel like there's this cohort of males like trailing a few years behind the females and it's kind of like good news and kind of bad news because it's like well I mean, in some ways, like, the girls are maybe a little less affected now. Like, maybe the girls are slowing down, but we thought that it was just girls we needed to worry about, at least with the 80-20 ratio. Now we're seeing, oh boy, no, the boys are just late to the party. But they're realizing, I mean, there's stuff like the trans maxing manifesto out there saying, even if you don't think you're trans, here's how you can hypnotize yourself into thinking you're trans based on this completely fabricated list of so-called advantages.

MaryCate Delvey: And that's a whole other can of worms is this hypno sissy porn, you know, where that's that's what it is, is they're trying to convince themselves that they are women. And, you know, they. I don't know what the solution is, to be honest with you, you know, with things the way that they are. I guess my my solution to it has been, I'm just gonna tell people what they're talking about, you know, because I don't think they know what they talk about when they think they're in their safe spaces and the things that they consider normal that are not known in the mainstream, you know, but I… I don't know, do you think as a therapist that there is a way to bring them back? I think there absolutely is an element of bringing people out of a cult, but in terms of healing from a fetish, do you think there is any return from that or do you think those kinds of people are always going to represent somewhat of a danger to themselves or society?

Stephanie Winn: Gosh, I don't know. That's such a tough question. I mean, this isn't a population that I have expertise in treating. It's not really the sort of people that would have sought me out. And, you know, it's not to say that I never had clients who were males who chose to come to me with some kind of, you know, sexual issue, but I think those types of people are maybe less likely to seek out therapy if they do seek out therapy. They're looking maybe for a male, and then when you add in this gender identity component, they're looking for a gender-affirming therapist. And who knows what they're really telling that person. But in terms of the underlying dynamics, I think it's tricky because it depends on the severity of the degree of narcissism here. There's a degree of narcissism in everyone. We all have it. But are we looking at narcissistic personality disorder here? If we are, that forms at a really early age and that person's entire world is built on a foundation where their interpersonal mathematics are skewed, you know, the ratio of the value of their time and energy relative to anyone else's. Like I remember a time that I was helping someone leave an abusive relationship and It dawned on her from the way that her husband was treating her that 40 hours of her time wasn't even worth one hour of his time. You know, sometimes you – sometimes these situations come up in life where it makes it really stark, really obvious how skewed the valuation is. But barring those exceptional circumstances where someone can look at the math and be like, wow, I work full-time to support my partner who doesn't work at all, and they won't even, like, help me with this one simple thing, you know, barring those types of situations, Because once someone is in that degree of narcissism, they have a pretty delusional sense of their own superiority and entitlement, and they've done millions of iterations on justifying their mistreatment of others and justifying their entitlement. And so to start to undo all of that, it's like you… there would be an ocean of shame and remorse for them to confront. And so, you know, I do think that like with alcoholism, 12-step programs can be really helpful. I think there are people who have found religion really helpful for just dealing with massive amounts of shame and remorse about ways that they mistreated people. And at least if there's something like alcoholism in a person's past, the person who gets sober and joins AA and takes that path really seriously can at least say, I have been sober for X number of months or years and that's a way they differentiate their past self because that was my alcoholic self and this is my sober self or this is myself in recovery. But someone who, you know, With sexuality, it's like, when someone's conditioned themselves to get off on narcissistic fantasies or on really twisted senses of shame and sadism and things like that. Like, is it possible for that person to be redeemed and to find a loving relationship? Like, are they ever going to be able to marry and be a good father? I don't, I don't know. I hope, I hope that's the case for some of them. And for some of them, I think it might need to take something like a religious conversion. And I'm not saying that As a person who has any particular agenda about anyone converting to any religion, I just think that for some people, they need something as powerful as becoming a born-again Christian in order to, you know, just like the alcoholic who joins AA and says, that was me before I found AA. It's like, you know, for some people it's going to have to be that was me before I was saved in order to draw a clear enough line, as well as have a new set of rules to follow.

MaryCate Delvey: I know in your podcast, you've talked a lot with people about psychedelics. And you know, that is something that I have delved into myself to work through, you know, adoption trauma, you know, different things like that. I used to grow my own. mushrooms, you know, and I felt like the micro dosing aspect of that was very helpful in getting this almost third party perspective on myself, you know, where I didn't have to be taking large amounts, but you get these benefits of being able to look at the bigger picture. And I can't help but wonder, would that be helpful for some of these people to be able to step out of themselves a little bit and look at you know, life as the big picture.

Stephanie Winn: I love sleep. Sound sleep is a crucial foundation of good mental and physical health, from mood and concentration to metabolism and cellular repair. And I sleep very well thanks to my Eight Sleep Pod Pro Cover. My side of the bed is programmed to be warm when I get in and cool down to a neutral temperature in the middle of the night so I don't wake up overheated like I used to. How would you customize your bed temperature? Visit 8sleep.com and use promo code SUMTHERAPIST to take up to $200 off your purchase. Even if they're already running another sale, this code will get you an additional $50 off. 8sleep currently ships not only within the USA, but also to Canada, the UK, select countries in the European Union, and Australia. Thanks for considering purchases that support the show. Well, a lot of people do report sort of a sense of ego death on psychedelics. And, you know, part of what's happening in the brain is that it halts the activity of the default mode network, which is not only where rumination takes place and where we tend to get stuck in neurotic patterns, but also the default mode network in some ways can be thought of as the eye, the sense of self. So a lot of people report on psychedelics having experiences of you know, being able to see things from a really selfless perspective or, you know, some types of psychedelic like MDMA is considered an empathogen, you know, that it really heightens the ability to see from a different person's perspective. And, you know, my thoughts on how much psychedelics might have the potential to cure people for whom narcissism plays a role, I don't know, because I think sometimes psychedelics enhance sort of the grandiosity of like, because, you know, if you think about, I don't know, I used to go to a lot of West Coast festivals in my 20s, like electronic dance music festivals. And there, there's a certain grandiosity in that culture when people feel like they have, you know, some kind of either great artistic achievement or great spiritual insight or something like that. there's this sort of like, ooh, ah, you know, thing to it. And I think for people who are deeply narcissistic enough, that psychedelics just give them new things to be like that about to be grandiose and boastful about. But it depends, you know, I mean, I don't know, did Russell Brand do psychedelics, because I feel like he's like, Didn't he? I don't know. I don't pay close enough attention to him. I can't stand the guy. I know a lot of people are gonna like hate me for this. They're gonna be like, what do you have against Russell Brand? He's so awesome. I'm like, I don't look, I don't have to like everyone. Okay. I also said something. I said, I said one thing about Taylor Swift on X. And I said, I was like, this is the only thing I will ever say about Taylor Swift. And what I did was I shared a video of someone like making fun of Taylor Swift, but in a really playful way. It was a musician being like, this is how Taylor makes her music, you know, like, And someone was like, what do you have against Taylor Swift? Why are you? I'm just like, I'm, you know, it's like, okay, there's certain people you can't touch, but like, I'm sorry. I just don't like Russell Brand. I don't care. I don't care what anyone has to say about why you think he's so great. I just don't like him. Right. Okay. Just like I also have a genital preference. Okay. And I'm entitled to my genital preference. I'm entitled.

MaryCate Delvey: I have an anti-Russell Brand genital preference.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, like I just don't like it. I just don't like it. I don't care. I don't care what you think about Russell Brand. I just don't like him. Okay? I just don't like him. It's just a preference.

MaryCate Delvey: You can like him. That is valid, Stephanie.

Stephanie Winn: Thank you. Thank you for validating my identity. But, like, I feel like, I don't know, I feel like Russell Brand is, like, the sort of, like, person who's, like, a narcissist that takes psychedelics and then they walk away and they're, like, they're, like, buy my million-dollar course on all the amazing things I learned on psychedelics and, like, let me just talk on and on and on about God in a way that subtly implies that I actually secretly think I am God, like.

MaryCate Delvey: Oh, I hear what you're saying. Yeah, I do. I do. Oh, my goodness. Ugh. Yeah, I… I mean, I guess I wish there was, you know, an easy solution to to all of this. I think it's going to take a big cultural shift. You know, I think that, you know, we're going to have to do a lot of getting more comfortable with being less kind, you know, or, you know, society's idea of kind just because I don't think it's kind to keep perpetuating the kinds of lies and problems and, you know, making children surgical patients for life, you know, I think it is the opposite of kind to continue playing into that.

Stephanie Winn: If I can add one more thing to that, and I'm glad that we've ventured into it. I feel like we're just having a conversation that's way off the rails of wherever we started, but I'm really enjoying this. I feel like there's an American dream ethos of unlimited opportunity that pervades our culture, even amongst people who think of themselves as being anti-American or anti-establishment, anti-capitalism, what have you. Plus, I think there's also, in youth, for those who grew up with relatively abundant, you know, access to water, food, shelter, and all of that, there's sort of a spirit of limitless possibility of we can have our cake and eat it too. And I think for some of us, it's only as we go through life that we realize that just the nature of life is that you have to make difficult decisions. This is why Oliver Berkman's book is so brilliant. I don't know if you've ever read 4,000 Weeks. The subtitle is Time Management for Mortals, and it's different than every other time management book because he's like, you can't have it all. You can't do it all. You only have 4,000 weeks to live, and a lot of your time is predetermined by the things you actually have to do, by other people's agendas, by interruptions. So out of the little bit of time that you do have that you actually have any say over, you're going to have to make some really difficult decisions about what actually matters to you. And you're going to have to say no to things you love. And I just I love that attitude, because it's it's so realistic and refreshing. And so I think sometimes life has its way of teaching us that you do have to make difficult decisions. that you have to choose the thing that you're the most passionate about over the thing that you're slightly less passionate about, and that you, you know, saying yes to some things means saying no to others. And so when it comes to, you know, everything you just said about people needing to realize that you can't always be kind about everything, or, you know, kind, I put in air quotes here, It's like, sometimes you have to make a difficult decision, you have to realize that in order to protect the most vulnerable, the most deserving, you have to sometimes have very aggressive boundaries with the less deserving. And it comes back to that, you know, the part about the woman who coddles her boyfriend until he becomes the father of her child, and then she's like, Go, go to work, go make some money, come home and protect us, because I got a little baby here, okay? Like, we have real limits here, right? Like, just like that sort of… thing like, yeah, you might love your boyfriend or husband, but you cannot tolerate him being irresponsible if you have a baby to protect. And life is like that. And so all these people who I think they're still in this sort of very American and very young fantasy that we can have our cake and eat it too. We can have it all. We can have limitless opportunity. We can affirm and validate everyone's identity. We can be inclusive. We can be kind. And it's like, no, you fucking can't. Because look what happens. So I just did an interview with Tamara Pitsky. And that by the time this airs, that will have been the previous week. And the time we're recording, it was earlier this morning. And we were talking about this like haze that comes over people when, you know, you would think that a fellow mental health professional, if you were like, hey, I think we're harming kids, can we stop and talk about the children that might be harmed? You would think they'd be like, oh, wait, we're harming kids? No, what do you have to say? You know, the fact that they don't have that reaction, that they're like, no, no, no, no, no, I can't hear it. Right? It's like that is the cost of your so-called kindness is burying your head in the sand and turning a blind eye towards horrific things happening to vulnerable people. You can't have it all. You can't have it all. You can't be nice. Okay. I have one more thing to say on this rant. Okay. Which is I was in Mexico when I had this realization a few years ago. I was like, you know, you leave the country and you're like, oh, this is what it feels like to be in a different vibe. Right? So I was in Mexico in like 2019 or 20, like right before the pandemic lockdowns. And from a different country, I could detect something about my own country that I that normally when you're in it, you're just in it. Right. And it was this it was that. There's an easygoingness in Mexico, and granted, I was in the touristy parts where everyone's chilling, but there's an easefulness there that I think partly stems from a few cultural differences, one of them being no one in Mexico is in denial about the fact that you have to make sacrifices to live. For example, I know you're vegetarian, right?

MaryCate Delvey: Yeah, I am. I actually, I used to be fully vegan, but I've added egg back in. Like I said, I've got some kidney stuff going on and that for me was the solution to getting rid of chronic stones and it worked. Got it. Okay. Yeah, definitely.

Stephanie Winn: So maybe you're the wrong person to share this with, but I'm enjoying talking to you. So I'm a former vegetarian and I actually, one of the reasons I became vegetarian as a child was after a trip to Mexico, where I saw where meat came from. Because we were staying with a Mexican family, and my mom was studying Spanish, and I had to go to the market with mom and get a dead chicken with all the feathers on and stuff. sit with her while she plucked it, and that's when I stopped eating animals, or shortly thereafter. So, but I was vegetarian for a long time, then it stopped working for me, and, you know, health-wise, plus my rationale, my beliefs had changed. And it's like, you know, in Mexico, it's like, because there's that closer connection with life and the source of animal-based food, for example, nobody is deluding themselves about how harmless their lifestyle is. Meanwhile, they're probably consuming fewer resources than the average American, but nobody's like, I live a perfectly harm-free lifestyle, you know? And I realize there's this thing, it's like Americans want to have their cake and eat it too. I'll take the example not of you, but let's say like the, let's say the vegan who's like, got a diet that requires, like, all these expensive resources from all over the world, but wants to believe that, like, they don't harm any– they don't harm a living thing, right? It's like, that's the American culture of have your cake and eat it, too, is you have the whole world catered to you, and then on top of that, you also have the world catering you the illusion that you don't require any resources or harm anyone. That is, I think, the nature of the beast that we're up against with this gender ideology stuff is that there's an ethos in this country, a very stubborn ethos of people who want to believe, narcissistically, that they don't have to make tough choices, and that they can live in this ideological bubble where nothing they do harms anyone ever. And it's that stubborn insistence that, no, my lifestyle doesn't require any resources or harm anyone whatsoever. And I want everything catered to me, including my belief that I am harmless and good. That is harming people to a huge degree. Whereas when we have the humility to admit, I have to make difficult decisions and I have to kill animals to live, for example, then you have some humility about what it takes to be alive on this planet. OK, that's my rant.

MaryCate Delvey: I think it's a great rant, you know, and I think that, you know, it really speaks to so many wider issues where, you know, people are thinking, you know, oh, I'm, you know, I want to be only good. And, you know, if I'm making this group of people happy, then, you know, I must be good, you know, but it's it's what is that doing on the larger scale? And what is the effect of coddling these young men doing on a grander scale of society? What kind of world are we going to live in where men cannot step up to those protective roles and where we're vilified for expecting them to? I don't know. I appreciate your rant, even as a pretty much vegan.

Stephanie Winn: I was just about to go on this rant about veganism. And I was like, wait a minute. She loves animals.

MaryCate Delvey: I do. I love animals. And that works for me, where something about the way that my body puts together protein and calcium, I figured out after years of chronic stones that cutting out meat and dairy for me pretty much eliminated the stones I went from having to have you know surgeries and things to really only every two or three years I have a lithotripsy to break up whatever stones are in there but like that works for me so I try not to be an insufferable vegan because you know Not everyone has chronic kidney stones, so they don't need to totally transform their diet the way that I figured out that I needed to. But you know, I think, you know, different things work for different people. I don't believe that the cure for quote-unquote gender dysphoria is making a mockery of women. I don't think that's a cure for anybody. I think that's BS. I think that anyone saying, oh, but it makes them happier. Like I said, I think you are doing a disservice to society as well as that individual person because there's not a medical disorder that the cure is you have to wear big old fake breastplates and you know change your name to Susie. I think it's ridiculous and it makes me feel like I'm living in the twilight zone where you know I have been excommunicated from people that I was close to for believing that and you know I I have to prep my daughters like, you know, OK, you know, you're you can be whatever kind of girl you want. You don't have to be a girly girl, but you're a girl, you know, and that's OK. And I never had to have that talk. But, you know, I I do worry about about people that I meet and you know my kids and their friends because you know there are as I don't have to tell you they come to you the families of these kids and it's everywhere right you know it's in the remake of the babysitters club it's in you know it all of their media It's on Roblox, you know, like I have seen, you know, kids walking around on Roblox and there's a big old, you know, trans flag on this building and that building. Like, I don't think they can really get away from it at this point, which kind of leads back to you're not oppressed, you know, you are elevated and celebrated by a society that is pushing the money towards pharma, towards these surgeons or, you know, I'm not sure. There are so many better educated people than I who, you know, they have followed the money and they know it goes back where it goes back to and who is promoting this or that. You know, I am just I am just a mom who reads the things that they say. Because I think that it's important to know what it's really about, even if it's really dark. trying to explain to my parents what I do is so funny. I'm like, well, I find, you know, the really gross things that the men in the dresses write, and then I read that, and they're like, and people like that. I'm like, no, they hate it, but like, you know, people need to hear it. My parents, they're so funny. You know, my mom's like, Why did Jamie Lee Curtis block you?" I'm like, well, because her son is a man in a dress and I'm upset about it. It's just so funny to me. Anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this.

Stephanie Winn: Wow. You talk about the Twilight Zone and I just remembered that I have this vague recollection that comes up every now and then of a time about 10 years ago where I had this weird premonition that there was going to be a time in the future where we had this idea of pregnant men. And at the time, I couldn't understand it. My brain was like, wait, how does that work? So are the pregnant people, are the women becoming men? Or can men get pregnant? My brain tried to do the math and just exploded. And I'm like, that's a weird idea. And it disappeared. seven years later, you know?

MaryCate Delvey: I mean, look where we are. Do you know who Prisha Moseley is? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so for anyone listening who does not know, she is a female detransitioner. She is a lovely, lovely young woman, and she just had a baby. But she had her gender identity changed to legally be male, and she was denied WIC benefits because they don't allow the fathers of children to apply for WIC benefits. And she's the mother. I mean, she birthed this beautiful, beautiful baby. So anyone listening who doesn't know who she is, please follow. Her name is D-Trans Aqua.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, I bet that wasn't in the informed consent. Right. That she signed that, you know, 10 years from now when you realize this was all a lie and you're trying to get your health back and you discover that you are capable of getting pregnant even though now you have to have a c-section because your vagina has lost plasticity and now you won't be able to breastfeed your baby. Another thing to be aware of at that time is that you won't be eligible for WIC benefits because you're listed legally as a man.

MaryCate Delvey: Which kind of calls them out, too, on, you know, oh, they don't actually believe there are pregnant men like you had that joke about. You know, they they want to be these mouthpieces about it, but they're not. Nobody really buys it. I don't think anybody buys it. They don't buy it. You know, there's that that famous comic of the the woman saying, oh, I met this woman who is perfect for you talking, talking to her trans identified male friend and you know, they meet up on this date and it's another quote-unquote trans woman and, you know, then they're upset and, you know, you see this story play out, especially in their Reddit forum again and again, you know, where they say, well, I, they thought that I would be, I would really like this person because we're both trans, but I'm a lesbian, you know, and again, with the, they're allowed to have genital preferences, but the rest of us are not, I don't know, it's just, It is the Twilight Zone. It is crazy. You look around and you're like, are we just doing this now? The vitriol that I get just for reading the things that they say is so funny to me because, you know, I do do my fair share of poking fun at them, you know, I make satirical videos specifically also, but, you know, the listen to trans people started as a way to kind of circumvent these restrictions that the woke mafia had put on to all of our social media, and it worked. Those were allowed to stay up because I was just reading what they say, but that didn't stop them from coming after me and, you know, saying, you know, you're, you're trying to make us look bad and all these things. You're like, I really don't have to try that hard. I don't have to look very hard at all. It is. I mean, you if you go on to male to female Reddit, you type in, you know, let's say boner. You know, I mean, you get hundreds of pages of results like I am not digging deep to find these things. These are not things that are buried. You know, I'm not cherry picking. It's the whole orchard. That is kind of what this is all about. I so often feel like a crazy person where I'm like, I know what this is. How is it that everybody else doesn't realize what this is? Hopefully, that'll change soon.

Stephanie Winn: It's like this twisted relationship with evil where on the one hand, we love to demonize and villainize our fellow human beings. At the same time, This haze comes over and we like want to deny what our own senses are telling us. You know, earlier you said these men are making a mockery of women and for anyone who doesn't still believe that, I know, you know, we covered a lot of ground and we probably got pretty scattered in this conversation, but you know, just go and look at Mary-Kate's videos. So on that note, you are at Mary Kate Delvey? Correct, yeah. Mary Kate Delvey on X and are you also on TikTok or Instagram?

MaryCate Delvey: So I got the official boot from TikTok. I had to make a new account. It's now like marykate.mf.delvey but I don't really upload there anymore. I sort of just use that as my medium for filming the videos because it's an easy editing software. I really just post to 2x to Twitter now.

Stephanie Winn: Well, thank you for going to those dark corners of the internet so the rest of us don't have to and for your stomach made of steel. Yeah, thank you for exposing them so courageously. It's not to say that all people wrapped up in this are of the same mind, but this is certainly a segment of the population that we need to understand. We need to take our blinders off to understand that, you know, if you are driven by a desire to treat others with fairness and compassion and to be just and kind. If that's where you're coming from, that might be affecting your perception and making it difficult for you to see that that's not where everyone is coming from, that there are these sadistic impulses that are part of our human nature. And for some people, they are the dominant feature in their personality. And we do need a different set of rules when we are dealing with those types of people. And so You know, it's through satire like that which you create, which most of Mary-Kate's videos, in case you're not familiar, not all of them, most of them are just directly reading these quotes from Reddit. So, thank you so much.

MaryCate Delvey: Thank you so much for having me. It's really cathartic for me to be able to talk in real time with other people about these issues. I sometimes feel like a crazy person, like I said, talking with my friends or my parents. I'll send them really awful things that I come across. Everyone's just like, please, please stop sending this to me. So it's really nice to speak with other people who who know why I'm doing what I'm doing, who realize the grander scope of the problem, and who are also brave enough and willing to speak up. So thank you so much for doing what you do, because like I said, I do feel like my parents would have been some of your clients had I been a few years younger. And I'm very, very grateful to the upbringing that I had. I've mentioned this before publicly, but my mom is she runs marathons my dad you know they're they're very like they're not into you know my mom's not into makeup she's not into femininity so i was allowed to grow up that way as well and i'm very grateful for it because i was allowed to to come to that on my own and you know now i i I do those things when I feel like I need a little bit of war paint, you know, but I don't think that that's what women are. So anyway, I really, I so appreciate you having me on. Thank you.

Stephanie Winn: I hope you enjoyed this episode of You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist podcast. To check out my book recommendations, articles, wellness products, guest episodes on other podcasts, consulting services, and lots more, visit sometherapist.com. or follow me on Twitter or Instagram at sometherapist. If you'd like to go deeper, join my community at somekindoftherapist.locals.com. Members can dialogue with other listeners, post questions for upcoming podcast guests to respond to, or ask questions for me to respond to in exclusive members-only Q&A live streams. To learn more about the gender crisis, watch our film, No Way Back, The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care, at nowaybackfilm.com. Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, Half Awake. If you appreciate this podcast and want more people to find it, kindly take a moment to rate, review, like, comment, and share on your platforms of choice. Of course, just because I am some therapist doesn't mean I'm your therapist. This podcast is not a substitute for medical advice. If you need help, ask your doctor or browse your local therapists online. And whatever you do next, please take care of yourself. Eat well, sleep well, move your body, get outside, and tell someone you love them. You're worth it.