You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

Swell AI Transcript: 131. Warren Smith.mp3
Warren Smith:
The ability to think for oneself is super important. And I think it's really it's as simple as that in its most simplistic form. What I think of as critical thinking is getting people to think for themselves.

Stephanie Winn: You must be some kind of therapist. Today, I'm speaking with Warren Smith. He is the founder of the Secret Scholars on YouTube, as well as a volunteer firefighter, teacher and critical thinker. Warren's probably biggest claim to fame where you might have originally encountered him, which is certainly where I originally encountered him, is that video that went viral within the last few months of Warren speaking with a student about the claim that JK Rowling was transphobic. Warren did an excellent job of using critical thinking skills and Socratic dialogue to help open the students mind and perspective. And a lot of people have appreciated his work ever since. So I'm really excited to have him on the show today and dive into his thoughts on critical thinking, education and lots more. Warren, thank you so much for joining me.

Warren Smith: Yeah, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Stephanie Winn: It's great to have you here. So tell us a little bit about your background and what led up to that video going viral.

Warren Smith: I was on my fifth year of teaching, fourth year at that school, and it was, we were doing a newscast. Right. So the, I guess like my supervisor or whatnot had asked me to do a newscast with the specific student who was the student in that video. And he was, they wanted him to anchor it. Like they requested that and he was feeling a bit nervous. So I was like, we'll just do a warm up and I'll sit here for a minute and you can operate the camera and let's talk about whatever. And he's like, well, I'd like to ask you about Harry Potter. I said, okay, hit record. All right. So these guys want to talk about like JK Rowling, I think it was. And so what's up? And the rest is, what you saw on the video.

Stephanie Winn: So this was in the context of a high school multimedia class, correct?

Warren Smith: Yep. I teach students how to edit video, how to operate camera, how to do photography, edit photography and Photoshop. That's mostly what we do in like 3D printing. So, and I find it interesting about like the camera, like I was telling you before, but the potential for students to practice like public speaking without the need to be in front of a room full of people. You don't have to get a room full of people together. You don't even have to use the footage. It's like they can always just delete it. But getting, if you can speak in front of a camera, it really is similar and it gets you, you can learn to get past that mentally. So yeah, that's how I view it. There's a lot of potential for that. And there's different opinions. around that, but that's my opinion.

Stephanie Winn: So it sounds like the greater context in which this was occurring was that as a multimedia teacher, part of what you wanted to do was just help get students comfortable with being on camera, being recorded. Something I know as a podcaster was a learning curve for me, just getting used to seeing and hearing myself. I've had guests who'd never been on camera before get really anxious and ask me to, you know, delete things or not publish things. So just kind of helping them over that hump. And it sounds like through the process of teaching multimedia, there would be kind of these regular opportunities for more Socratic dialogue in the context of also just chatting about film and technique and things like that.

Warren Smith: Yeah. I mean, I would, I would describe it as like, if you have this block of time, let's say I have these students for an hour, once a week, we'll say, or twice a week or something, depending on the class. Okay. Well, My, my job and responsibility is to use that hour in the way that's most effective with the tools that the discipline that I teach, that's going to benefit them the most and help them the most prepare to be effective adults in the world, learn to speak and think. And so I think that's true for any teacher. And then they filter that through their medium, whether it's history, math, whatever it is. But yeah, so it's okay. It's like, it's not just teaching students how to, operate a camera or edit video. It's like, okay, well, what do you do with the camera now? What do you, what kind of footage are we editing? It's like, we need footage to be able to edit. Should we just run around in circles and film that so that there's nothing? I don't know. It's just, so that's how I think about it. I'm not, I don't think about it as one. It's not like filming exchanges or anything. It's like, I've done a variety of projects. It could be a variety of things.

Stephanie Winn: That's also thinking about the quality of the content and you're teaching this generation that is just inundated with this constant flood of content and where there are a lot of sort of online echo chambers where people are socially rewarded for sort of parroting whatever other people are saying. But you're encouraging students to think critically about the ideas that they're sharing, the value of those ideas, how they arrived at those ideas and so on.

Warren Smith: Yeah. The ability to think for oneself. It's super important. And I think it's really, it's as simple as that in its most simplistic form. What I think of as critical thinking is getting into people, getting people to think for themselves.

Stephanie Winn: I guess I'd like to know about your successes and obstacles with this generation, um, trying to teach critical thinking, but Before we go there, um, tell us about the reaction to this video and the things that happened downstream of it.

Warren Smith: It just kind of came out of nowhere where I had, I had been uploading kind of little thing now and then like a little lecture or something. If something was interesting, I was really intrigued by the technology of YouTube as a medium and for teachers. And I'd been inspired by what like people like Jordan Peterson had been doing in their early days, recording and uploading. But so when I did stumble on a little exchange like that, I was like, oh, that's probably worth uploading. You know, I didn't think anyone would. So it came out of nowhere as far as the reaction to it. And then everything that's happened downstream, well, everything's been downstream. It changed the environment for me at work, kind of set off a clock. where I knew like, I mean, I knew I was going to get, I thought they were going to not renew my contract over the summer because it optically would not have looked good to fire me right then when there was that much attention on me. So I knew that they would, they would have to wait and let it blow over. I thought they would just, because what they usually do is just don't renew people's contracts. And this is like a school where they can fire renew someone for any reason. Like they, I've seen people get fired for no reason. And it's, people are thinking about this through the lens of where they went to school. That's not how it is. And it's difficult for people to understand that it's more like a business. And it's really just comes down to the discretion of one person. And I think that person that they are very They think like a business person and they're worried about optics and they could feel that the wind was not blowing in the right direction. And anyway, so that was all downhill or downstream. To answer your question.

Stephanie Winn: So you thought they were going to wait until your contract expired, but they just know my contract wouldn't expire.

Warren Smith: It just it needs to be renewed every summer. So when they to get rid of someone, they usually there's two ways they do it. They usually. just don't renew the contract. And then they didn't even fire them. I've heard them joke about this. Like the guy that I came in and replaced, that's what they did. The multimedia teacher before me. And they joked about it. They were like, no, we didn't fire him. We just didn't renew his contract. And they did the little quotation mark thing. Um, or they just get rid of someone in the middle of the day, like out of nowhere. And they do like a different approach and they do like a hard and fast approach. which is ugly and brutal, but yeah, that's it.

Stephanie Winn: So what ended up happening to you then? Was it the hard and fast approach or the middle of the day approach?

Warren Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Like the principal that hired me and the assistant principal that hired me that I interviewed with and worked for for the first two years. That's what happened to them on the same day. Both of them, not the same day as me, but the two of them, on the same day. No one knows the reason still. They just, they make up some nonsensical reason about an unsafe environment, which is just, what does that even mean? They can't even define that. They can't, they don't have to show any evidence of any kind. They don't. Anyways.

Stephanie Winn: Well, I think what you're saying is really important, you know, for people to understand sort of the, the climate of the working environment and if that's the culture or.

Warren Smith: Oh yeah, the, the, the culture was awful. And I knew that I knew it was, I was, rushing to try and get my feet under me to figure something else out.

Stephanie Winn: Do you think you knew when that the clock was ticking?

Warren Smith: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. That's what I mean by that.

Stephanie Winn: I mean, before that, like, did you, cause it seems like you picked up on enough of like how they did business there that you might've known that it was just a matter of time.

Warren Smith: Yeah. I knew it was a matter of time for sure.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah. But you didn't let that stop you from sort of following your passion.

Warren Smith: No, no. I like that. You were talking about that secret scholars, little, that little crappy, weird short film thing I did. Like I did that while I was working there. And I'm sure that like people would probably make fun of that. It's like, no, I'm not going to, I don't care. Cause there was two sets of leadership. One set were very professional and great. The other set were a joke. And it was like, I, the, they're the two that replaced the guys that hired me, the assistant, the principal and assistant principal were taken out in one day in a form of a coup that people don't believe this. They were replaced. The principal was like 28 years old, younger than me, like 10 years or something like the principal. I've never said that before, but. So anyways, and the assistant principal. It was like the teachers were more high school than the students. It was clicky. It was it was a weird environment. It was. I knew I needed to get out of there, but you get comfortable. at a position, you know, your commute, it's closed. And you're like, wow, the pay sucks. This health insurance sucks. The social life here sucks. There's like one person I even enjoy talking to, but whatever.

Stephanie Winn: I'm chuckling because I've been in bad work environments, too.

Warren Smith: Yeah. And then four years goes by and you're asleep. So it honestly leaving wasn't what bothered me. It was like how they did it. And I don't want to get into all this really, but just Whatever part you do want to share. Yeah, I don't really want to get into is just I look forward to never thinking about them again. That's my goal is like, I don't want to think about them at all. In any way. It's, yeah, it's, it's like, why give someone like that the ability to like, take up your thought process or your brain space that they're not worth it. People don't understand this is like, they're like, well, why wouldn't you name the school stand up for yourself? It's like, you have no idea. People have no idea what you're talking about.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, I understand reluctance to name anyone or anything you have an issue with, because it's just kind of inviting more drama into your life, like sacrificing yourself to be in the role of so called calling them out. And it's oftentimes not worth it. But what was the reaction of the students? Were you fired in front of students?

Warren Smith: Well, no, they do it very, they're very, practice at this and they're sneaky and everything. I was like, fine. I was like friendly with them. And it was, God, I don't even want to think about this. It was so, it's stupid.

Stephanie Winn: And you're still teaching at a college because that was at a high school.

Warren Smith: Yeah. It's like a dollar store high school. It's like half a high school. I call it.

Stephanie Winn: Well, let's, let's, let's switch gears a little bit. We don't have to talk about your experiences with that, you know, that particular administration. Um, but your experiences teaching in general, and and specifically trying to teach critical thinking to this generation. I think you did a really excellent job in that video about JK Rowling. I'm sure there are many other moments that didn't go viral or weren't filmed in the first place of similar styles of the conversation. I'm just curious about sort of your observations about successes as well as obstacles with teaching critical thinking to this generation.

Warren Smith: I think the biggest obstacles are the adults. You need adults that are willing to allow that framework. So Sam Richards, for example, who's a professor, he's teaching at the college level, Sociology 119, Penn State. I made a video about him because I was intrigued. He's like the only professor I could see that was not afraid of YouTube. And he would just live stream everything, his office hours, his class. He's got like 400 students plus, and they come up on the front of the room and conduct these thought exercises. And they're not only are they in front of 400 other students, but they're being streamed live and they know it and they're all fine with it. The administration was fine with it. I thought that's so that's the future. He's reaching such a larger audience. We're having budget crises. At my college, I'm hearing from reputable sources, there are budget crises at high school level as well. Less enrollment than ever before for whatever, I have no idea why. But definitely at the college level to the point where they are cutting a lot of programs. There's a lot of people that are very frustrated by this. And the solution is doing what he's doing. It's like stop being so afraid of innovation and trying to just control your products so that people have to pay overpriced. prices to be able to afford enrollment. And so I met, I got a chance to meet with him and talk to him for like an hour and a half during his office hours. And that's what separates sets him aside. I was so blown away by his ability to create that framework for the students to do that, to encourage it, to even think it's possible. Cause most people would just be like, it's impossible. No, it's going to, But the and then the administration did also also like his supervisors, and he's had close shaves with them. He's gotten a lot of pushback. He's almost been fired four times. But so anyways, I think to answer your question, it's it's by adults, I mean, the administration, everyone who's has the ability to affect that framework.

Stephanie Winn: It sounds like one of the obstacles you see them putting up is sort of like unwillingness to evolve with the times. And what about sort of the teaching what to think versus how to think?

Warren Smith: I can only speak for myself. I know there's definitely people out there that, what do you mean by that? What about it?

Stephanie Winn: Well, in terms of obstacles to an enlightening education for the younger generation, because it seems like what you've really been applauded for is teaching how to think critically. right? Like in that dialogue with the student, you're like, okay, so other people say that, hold on, we're going to set aside what other people say. We're going to think for ourselves. Let's think this through. Right. And, um, it seems to me, and I think to a lot of people, like there's kind of a growing spirit of like authoritarianism, um, on campuses, like, like, sort of this rigid dogma of what to believe, you know, and I mean, some, some universities are going the other way, like, some are starting to kind of turn back on some of the DEI stuff, or say, actually, we have a commitment to political neutrality, we as an institution are not going to take a stance on like, international conflicts or things like that, because that's really not our job. Our job is to foster an environment where people of diverse backgrounds can learn and where their opinions are allowed to evolve over time. So us taking a stance doesn't necessarily create an environment that really facilitates learning. So I think that's, that's an issue that I hear a lot of people having with just higher education these days. And it seems like what you're doing is really kind of swimming upstream.

Warren Smith: Yeah, there's probably there's a lot of that, I guess. But now I'm kind of on my, I'm in a different mode now. I'm kind of on my own just doing this, doing content creation and doing it when I can with students. Like I was just at Williams College for the day doing street epistemology with Peter Boghossian. But so we did get to interact with a bunch of cool students, but I don't get to do it on a daily basis. Like I used to with students, if that makes sense. I just teach one class online. And it's teaching filmmaking and everything. So it's just talking about movies and movie industry. And there's definitely there's a lot to apply to the movie industry regarding critical thinking, like why is the movie industry imploding? And there's definitely a set way of thinking that can be challenged.

Stephanie Winn: Why do you think it's imploding?

Warren Smith: One of the big reasons is the union system, the recent strikes with the unions, which causes people to kind of picket against their own interests without realizing it. And so you have this top people that are benefiting. Let's just take writers. You have, let's say the top 25% of writers are still going to be the top 25%. They're just making more now. And now there's actually fewer jobs. So the bottom 75% are actually getting screwed over. So they're out there picketing, thinking they're picketing for a higher wage. And then we've seen the consequence of that. Hollywood reporters even reporting on this. It's openly known now. So that's one big major reason. I think it's an unfeasible. Oh, also the innovation for an alternative industry. The cost of technology is going down. The ability to do independent work is going up. So then you have things like Daily Wire that are making like Pendragon cycle. And if they, if they are able to succeed with more than just like Matt Walsh's movie, which was a documentary, but it was a huge success. if they're able to succeed narratively with Pendragon Cycle and do something like Game of Thrones, that would be the domino that would change everything.

Stephanie Winn: Today's sponsor, Cozy Earth, is offering my listeners 40% off their selection of luxurious bedding, bath sheets, lounge apparel, and skincare products. Transform your space into a sanctuary of serenity and renewal. Check out their best-selling bamboo sheet set and plush luxe bath sheets. Visit CozyEarth.com slash Sumtherapist and use promo code SUMTHERAPIST to take 40% off your purchase. If you get a post-purchase survey, say that you heard about Cozy Earth from this podcast and they'll send you a free set of socks. All right, now back to the show. I mean, as someone who's not at all in the film industry and does not have my finger on the pulse of these things, like I'm just a small scale content creator. You know, my podcast, each episode gets a few thousand downloads. I have like five, six thousand YouTube subscribers. There are a lot of people out there like me, right? Like small scale content creators. So it's almost like just seems from my naive perspective, that it's almost like a democratization of, of content creation. A lot of people are, you know, just on these apps, scrolling through short form video content. And it's not like, it's not like we all are looking forward to the same show being on TV at the same time, or that that film coming out that everyone's going to go see, it's like, someone in their pocket of the internet has their little world. And then it's very asynchronous, too. Um, not only are we all kind of in our own little cultural bubbles that are unrelated to where we physically live. Um, but like, we're not all doing things at the same time.

Warren Smith: I think you're right though. When you say the democratization of it, I think that's huge. I think that the impact of YouTube is massive and we're just now starting to, I think we are just now starting to, the industry is starting to realize that where you have people like Pierce Morgan, who's moved from television to YouTube. and he's killing it, then you have shows that Star Wars, Rings of Power that are reacting to YouTuber reviews, like Neurodraudic Critical Drinker that are able to actually influence people in a way that it's big.

Stephanie Winn: So the industry isn't doing well, but the average person has a lot lower sort of

Warren Smith: Yeah, I mean, I would say, but the industry is a fool. It's a foolishly designed industry where it's heavily built around gatekeeping and doing things a certain way because that's how it's been done. So it needs to innovate. So when we say the industry, if we're talking about the ability for good movies to be made, that's not what I'm talking about. It's more like the traditional model, which it needs to innovate or it will die. And I think anytime you build something around this union structure, that is so protected by these insiders, and it's the definition of a rigged game. It has to innovate. But I try and articulate to students, my whole class is built around this idea that none of this is meant to be discouraging, it's meant to be liberating, and there's no better time to do this than right now. It's never been easier to go make a movie on your own, or to do an independent project. You've never It's never been so easy to reach an audience. Like you were just saying, the people that you're able to reach with this show, like that's significant. Thousands of people is significant. That's really.

Stephanie Winn: And I, I never advertised. I'm going to start advertising for the first time in my life because I now have a course that I'm selling and I want that course to reach people. But yeah, my, my podcast is like in the top 1% I never did anything to advertise it. Like, but the, but the, To get someone's attention, though, in the attention economy, it's like people just consuming content all day, you know, taking it for granted, like, who's going to integrate? I think that's actually an issue I have with my course. And I think the only reason that anyone's going to take my course seriously is because it addresses such a significant pain point for people that there are going to be people motivated enough because they're really, really struggling to solve a problem in their life. But I think without that, without some degree of suffering that compels you to like, you know, not just scroll through content, but to really take certain materials seriously and engage with it. Um, you know, unless you're like trying to save your life or someone else's life. Like, I don't know. It seems like a double edged sword.

Warren Smith: How'd you get started in this?

Stephanie Winn: How did I get started on my podcast? Um, well, uh, let's see. I decided, well, I launched in May, 2022. Wow. And I. Let's see, I started planning it, I think, in fall 2021. Which was like right when I was getting on X, Twitter, Substack. Um, all that kind of stuff. And like within a few months, I don't, you probably don't know my story at all. Um, within a few months of me, like joining the public sphere, I had trans rights activists coming after my therapy license. Oh yeah. So like that was my, And then episode 11 of my podcast, I talked to Helen Joyce, and that one went more viral than anything else I'd created. And it was that Helen Joyce from Sex Matters wanted to hear my story of how I, as a therapist, had been accused by online activists of so-called conversion therapy because I dared to speak out about how my field was handling the issue of gender dysphoria. Helen Joyce wanted my story for something she was doing with sex matters. And I was like, well, why not come on my podcast and you can interview me because I need to share this story on my own podcast anyway. And then that episode got a lot more attention than anything else because it was Helen Joyce and people love her. And and then I got like, The number one complaint about that episode was that she was interviewing me and people wanted to hear from her. Fair enough. But that was actually the whole point of the interview was so that she could evoke my story. And I've tried doing even now, like even as someone who's done hundreds of these interviews and, um, I have a course where I've recorded, you know, videos by myself. Like I've finally gotten to the point where I can record by myself. I really don't do well at just like hitting record without someone to talk to. Like I need a conversational partner or else I lose my train of thought. Um, so yeah, that episode with Helen Joyce was, it took off and, um, I think just a lot of like cross pollinating with other content creators. Uh, I don't, I don't like that term content creators, but you know, for lack of a better word, other podcasters, people I met on X, um, I, I like made some memes that went viral. I hear as a creating, like all this like deep content, like long form interviews and essays and things like that, that was getting, you know, a few hundred views here and there. And then I would make a meme, like a really silly meme. And that would get, you know, like one of my memes got like a million views. It was like, okay, let's see what the internet wants. So yeah, I mean, somehow, uh, and that, that, and just being consistent, cause I like throughout all the ups and downs, I've had like health problems and career challenges and all this kind of stuff, but I've been releasing episodes every week for over two years now. And I think just consistency and yeah, sometimes I like start to run out of steam for meeting new people. Um, like I started inviting some friends back who I've had on the show before, just cause it's nice to talk to people you already know.

Warren Smith: That's going to be really challenging. Inviting someone like every week. I can't imagine doing that. I don't do that. I just, you know, I just talk about whatever and that must be really difficult having to find people like that. Jeez.

Stephanie Winn: It's the finding and also like wanting to be familiar enough with their work. I mean, I don't expect myself to have read every single book I've ever written or anything. Although I had one guest, Leonard Sachs. I've read all four of his books. He's the only person I can say that for. Yeah, I just take I just take my chances on inviting people. But I've ended up with this really kind of narrowly focused podcast, because I talk about gender a lot. And and then I like it pigeonholes me because there are people I would love to talk to about other things. But if if they're not willing to talk to someone who's publicly expressed gender critical views, like a lot of people just won't won't touch me, including I'm not going to name names, but there was a guy who wrote a very popular book on critical thinking, actually. Yeah, a book that was designed to help people become aware of their, their biases and distortions and fallacies. And he was going to have me on his podcast and, or we were going to do a pod swap. And then I guess he looked a little further into my content, saw gender critical content, decided to never speak to me again. And I'm like, are you aware of what biases are preventing you from looking further into what I'm saying?

Warren Smith: Jeez. I'm curious now about that.

Stephanie Winn: I feel like all of us, like the people with my story and your story and like all these stories where, you know, we said one thing questioning any aspect of gender ideology and then we like lost a job or had threats made against our license or, you know, whatever it is, like you put all of our minds together. We could, we could build a whole university.

Warren Smith: Like, yeah, that's crazy. I don't, I just, yeah, I get a lot of flack from like people in my personal life, but What was it, what was that initial thing? Like, what was your perspective that initially on gender critical or whatever you would call it?

Stephanie Winn: I just want to say for all the commenters who are going to be like, why didn't you let your guests talk more, Stephanie? Why is he interviewing you, Stephanie? Warren is choosing to ask me questions.

Warren Smith: Okay. Yeah. Just ignore them.

Stephanie Winn: Um, what was the question?

Warren Smith: Um, what was your perspective on, what was that initial like perspective on gender? I don't know what the term is again. Is it gender critical or whatever? What did you say that people are worried about? What's your perspective?

Stephanie Winn: Well, I think my perspective has evolved over time. Um, so this is actually kind of interesting that you're asking me this cause you're coming from a perspective of not knowing my story. And I've been thinking actually about like how I want to do some kind of episode to address exactly what I think about this and just kind of clarify it. Um, sort of, from the beginning as I stand now. But again, I don't do well talking to the camera without someone to talk to. So thank you for asking me. I think when I first started expressing views online about this in 2021, where I was coming from was that I had been a therapist. I graduated grad school in 2013. So, you know, went through the standard route. Yeah, I think we're about the same age. Um, went through the standard route of, you know, working various jobs while gaining like supervised internship hours and stuff like that. Worked in community mental health and then like gradually worked my way from like less, from like more traumatized and impoverished populations up to like less traumatized and impoverished populations. Um, and, um, you know, so I had a wide range of experience and When I was in grad school, it was the end of the DSM-IV, and we were being told that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders No. 5 would be coming out soon. So they were sort of preparing us for what was going to be in that. So I remember like during grad school, there was very little talk of gender at all. There was like one very woke person who insisted that we all call ourselves cis, and I was like, what's that? There was, and actually funny enough, I have a story about her. There was one day that one of our teachers had us divide into like, straight people and LGBT. Because it wasn't like, I didn't experience it as like a divisive identity politics thing. I experienced it as this teacher wants people with lived experience of being LGBT to talk about what they would want a straight person who's their therapist to know about that, and we're studying therapy, and fair enough. I didn't see anything divisive about that exercise, but this young woman, she identified as queer, even though she was heterosexual, and she wanted to know if she could be in the queer group, and the teacher was like, no. Between 2010 and 2013, that teacher was like, you're straight, go to the straight people group. And I feel like now, like, teachers wouldn't do that. They'd be like, Oh, yes, you're under the umbrella. Okay. So anyway, I mean, I just I saw, you know, my first several years of being a therapist, I just saw that exponential rise, where like, at first, there's very little exposure to anything like gender related. And then there's just this exponential growth. But like, my first exposure to in a clinical setting was someone with psychosis who, um, and we were, I was running a help helping run a residential facility. And so there's a question of this person with psychosis who was male and very large and intimidating physically and actively hallucinating, um, wanted to be housed with the females. And our director insisted that he be placed in a female room because of how he identified. And so that was my first time being exposed to how this could present a conflict of interest for different people's needs. And sure enough, one of the females in that room ran away from the facility. She had a history of being sexually assaulted. Like, why should she have to sleep in a room with a male? It's just unfortunate that the alternative to her was like living on the streets. So that that was a bad situation. But then, you know, I like I was there as a therapist working with adolescents and young adults and seeing these people with all these different gender identities coming in more and more. And, you know, and then you see, like, what else is going on underneath the surface? You know, whether it's a history of trauma, whether it's undiagnosed autism, like there's all these other things. And and it feels like you're not supposed to talk about it. And then I went to a training that the company that I worked for at the time strongly encouraged all employees to attend in so-called gender affirming care. And that's where I was introduced to the whole, you know, would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son, like trans people are going to kill themselves if you don't affirm them, like that whole narrative. And I think at the time, based on my personal politics, my cultural environment, um, the kind of person I saw myself as, like, I repressed some of the cognitive dissonance that this brought up for me and, um, went along with it. And I was actually like one of the most liberal person peoples, can't talk straight, at the place I worked and, um, was like really trying to adopt the new language and things like that. And then again, like I'm having this experience where more and more of these young people are being referred to me and I'm seeing what else is going on in the background that it feels like we can't talk about because it feels like gender is this like wall that they're using to defend their trauma history, their autism, their like other stuff that they had going on. But this whole time I'd never heard of detransitioners, right? And I also didn't really understand what the medical pathway entailed, including while I was working with like post-op, post-medicalization trans people who are having a ton of health problems. And I didn't know how connected those things were, which like in retrospect is ridiculous because I'm a really health conscious person. I'm the sort of person who like, I, this might be TMI, but I have expressed on this podcast before, I hate hormonal contraception and how normalized it is in our culture, because I think it really messes with women psychologically. Like the rate of completed suicide in women on contraceptives is three times higher. And so people talking about it like it's no big deal, giving it out for like acne or painful periods or things like this, I think is irresponsible. So given how much I knew already about how sensitive a woman can be to a woman's own Um, the fact that I didn't question for the first few years, like what cross-sex hormones could be doing to people is just crazy to me. So it wasn't until 2020 that I heard about detransitioners. And so for me hearing that they, that this is a type of person that exists in the world, a person who thought they were trans went through these medical procedures, you know, a person who went through these medical procedures and then regretted it. For me, my instinct just perked up and I was like, I have to learn everything I can about this immediately. And the craziest thing to me is that there are mental health professionals who don't have that reaction, who don't immediately feel like they need to learn everything they can, especially like bleeding heart liberal types, like, like, you know, those who supposedly care for minorities, and disadvantaged people and like, who are skeptical of big pharma and like, profiting industries, like, I don't know, it's just crazy that other people don't have that same reaction of what, there are people who've been harmed by this. I need to learn everything I can. So it was through actually, I think the first time I heard detransitioners was on dark horse podcast with Heather Hying, who's now a personal friend and mentor of mine. She's been really influential in my life.

Warren Smith: Yeah. Brett was really nice. to offer me some support when I was going through all that stuff to speak on the phone.

Stephanie Winn: I see how that's a match for sure. Yeah. They're great. Heather is honestly like out of all the people I've met, um, since I've been a micro celebrity, like Heather's one of the most generous people. Um, so yeah, I mean it was, I was listening to dark horse podcast in 2020 and heard about D transitioners and that's when I, um, just felt like I needed to learn everything I could. And then it just, everything fell apart. You know, like, I was like, why aren't we talking about this as a profession? And but I wasn't on X or Twitter. At the time, I was just on Facebook. And I was seeing these like woke bullying dynamics in Facebook groups for therapists, the largest group in the country for therapists in private practice, on Facebook was dominated by three or four woke bullies, the kind of people who would, you know, create struggle sessions and call everything you do racist. And like, I was seeing that go down. So I was just questioning all of it at once. And it was like a year and a half of just really thinking about everything and listening to a lot of podcasts and reading a lot of books before I wanted to start my own podcast. And I wasn't gonna start a podcast that was narrowly focused on this particular issue. But I think it's just, this is the world we're living in. So this is how I found myself here. I don't know if I explained like, what I what I've come to believe about gender. But that's where I started.

Warren Smith: I gotcha. Yeah, no, that's super helpful. Thank you. Yeah, that's because I started teaching in 2020. And are you still are you still practicing?

Stephanie Winn: So I still have my license as a therapist as much as certain trans rights activists would like me not to. I was successful in defending it and I stopped seeing patients voluntarily six or seven months ago at the peak of my health crisis because at that point I was doing therapy, podcasting, and consulting with parents of youth with rapid-onset gender dysphoria. So since my health has begun to recover, I've been just exclusively focused on consulting with parents of youth with rapid-onset gender dysphoria, and I built this course for them. Do you have an adolescent or adult child who is at risk of heading down a path of medical self-destruction in the name of so-called gender identity? The ROGD Repair course and community for parents is a whole new toolkit that will be a game changer for you. ROGD Repair is an interactive and ever-expanding toolkit of psychology concepts and communication skills curated specifically for parents like you. Based on what has actually worked for my clients who were desperate to improve their relationships and save their kids. ROGD Repair is designed based on my theory of the trifecta of social contagion. Gender ideology doesn't operate in a vacuum, but in a perfect storm along with wokeness and cluster B personality traits. This trifecta is perfectly designed to take advantage of every psychological vulnerability in your child. Fortunately, that's where ROGD Repair comes in. ROGD Repair is designed with your child's psychology in mind, too, even if they're an adult. ROGD Repair teaches you to work with, rather than against, their present state of mind, using psychology concepts and communication skills that are uniquely suited for your situation. So stop overwhelming yourself with horror stories and worst-case scenarios and more medical information than you need. Start working smarter, not harder. Start equipping yourself to repair the way the gender crisis has impacted your family today. Visit ROGDRepair.com and you can use promo code SOMTHERAPIST2024 at checkout to take 50% off your first month. That's ROGDRepair.com.

Warren Smith: Like you were talking about how it just kind of exponentially changed and grew, I noticed my first year I had a student, a girl, and then she became a guy. And then one of her classmates, a guy, I don't know if he changed genders. It was, I couldn't, and then they got pregnant and he was, so, We couldn't, and then we just couldn't keep track of it. But I just remember seeing this, like, it became the social element to it where it, and everyone just goes along with it. It's very, uh, she changed her name one day. She just came in, changed her name.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah. There's, did you see that story about the 35 year olds, um, trans identified female who was, she had two children, um, and she died. I believe it was a liver or kidney issue caused by testosterone. Did you see about this new new piece of information? I mean, we know that testosterone in females is really destructive to a lot of organs and systems, including the liver and kidneys. And when you bring children into the mix, like. It's like. Your life isn't just about you anymore, and we're going to have to wait decades to see what the impact is on on the children who, you know, were affected by their parents. taking cross-sex hormones. Obviously, it creates vaginal atrophy, so the babies have to be delivered by C-section. But what's it going to do to the baby to be exposed to all that testosterone? Is that baby going to be more likely to have a disorder of sexual development or some other abnormality? And then we know from Prisha Mosley's story how tragic it is when these young women who decide at an early age that they never want to be mothers, just like so many other people have decided at an early age, they never wanted to be parents. There's no evidence that a person can accurately predict early in life, whether they want children later in life. So, you know, but Prisha was medicalized, even though she had trauma and an eating disorder. an undiagnosed borderline personality disorder. And anyway, she got her breasts removed. And now, thankfully, she's been able to have a healthy baby, as well as be a stepmom to her boyfriend's child. And she's loving motherhood, but it's been absolutely torturous for her at the same time, because one thing that nobody told her, and nobody is telling a lot of these young women, is that when a young woman has a double mastectomy, not every bit of mammary gland tissue was removed. And so her body was trying to lactate after she gave birth to her child or had her child by cesarean, of course, because the testosterone impacts ability to give birth vaginally. And so her chest has been in this tremendous pain because it's trying to lactate, but it can't come out. It's just, yeah, I mean, I could go on. So as a teacher, I mean, this is so this is kind of going on to a subject that I, I mean, just honor your own comfort level with regard to protecting people's anonymity and, you know, only share what you feel comfortable with. But as a teacher in this environment where, you know, you were expected to sort of go along with the narratives, what kind of ethical dilemmas did you face? And how did you handle those?

Warren Smith: So let's go to my first year of teaching, which is a regular public school. So that's an easy one. So I was teaching like a journalism class cause they needed someone to teach it. And I had a student who she was like the captain of the field hockey team. And she'd had, um, they just played a game and one of her teammates had a pretty bad injury. Like broke something from a trans player on the other team. And this was the second, student at this school to be injured by the same player in a different game. And she wanted to write a story exploring this. She was very intelligent, like a straight A student, really good student. And she couldn't find any adults to, that would provide a quote. It was one of the first things I, first times I noticed that, but I had never, I had no idea what pronouns were when I, I arrived at grad school, actually, I got my dates wrong with undergrad versus grad. When I arrived at grad school, yeah, like they, I had never heard of the pronoun thing. We had to go around the circle. We were always adding like a housing fair thing to help grad students find apartments or something like that. We had to go around the circle and I didn't, I was drawing a blank. I'm pretty dyslexic when it comes to, some vocabulary, like writing, spelling and some things for some reason, math. Um, and I couldn't remember what a pronoun meant and it, I couldn't pick up the pattern as it was going around. I was like, what is going on? What are they doing? And it came to me and I, and I don't honestly remember exactly what I said, but it was probably, I wish I had had that on cause it w it was probably something ridiculous. Like we, us or something like that. And everyone like just looked at me like I was, they, they looked angry and I couldn't figure out why. And now it makes sense.

Stephanie Winn: So, I mean, we're about the same age. We went to grad school around the same time. So you've seen the same thing, right? Like you, you go to college and grad school, right? Right. Is this stuff is like bubbling up, but like, it's a small portion of the culture and then, and then it just rapidly escalates.

Warren Smith: 2016, I think my theory is that when Trump came into office, the reaction, the blowback to that overcorrected and it caused a lot of cognitive dissonance in other areas.

Stephanie Winn: Well, I think there's there's evidence for that. I mean, Helena Kirshner, for instance, she was I think the first detransition I ever interviewed on my podcast. I think she was like episode eight. And she said that during the Trump era, or actually leading up to it, like the 2015 as trans identified young people on Tumblr were contemplating the possibility of a Trump presidency, that it was like, we need to get our hormones now, they're gonna, they're gonna take them away from like, there's this panic.

Warren Smith: I'm terrible at interviews and stuff, because I don't, I don't like talking about myself. Oh, So that's why I prefer asking questions.

Stephanie Winn: Okay. Well, I mean, we don't have to talk about you necessarily. I just think like, I actually don't, um, I don't normally try to get a lot of backstory from my guests. Cause I don't always think it's the backstory. That's the most interesting.

Warren Smith: I agree.

Stephanie Winn: I think it's more like that person's thoughts, but at the same time, there's something about you that I find myself like wanting to pin down. I can't quite pin it down. And that's why maybe I'm like digging a little bit too much.

Warren Smith: No, go for it. That's cool.

Stephanie Winn: I still don't know what it is. But what would you like to talk about?

Warren Smith: I haven't maybe I could get some free therapy while I'm here.

Stephanie Winn: Oh, okay. Interesting.

Warren Smith: I haven't been to in a long time.

Stephanie Winn: Ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to witness is not an actual therapist patient relationship. This is not mental health counseling. This is not medical advice. This is a podcast. This is for educational purposes only. Warren is not my patient. He has not signed anything. I've not signed anything. No money is being exchanged.

Warren Smith: I'm skeptical about therapists.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, me too. Yeah.

Warren Smith: I think it often makes things, it can make things worse. I think it comes down to the, the approach that the therapist takes. It's because it seems like you, it's a profession that, I don't want to upset the audience if they're therapists.

Stephanie Winn: Most mental health professionals who listen to my podcast are as disillusioned as I am with the field. So I don't think there are many.

Warren Smith: You don't want if you have like a client that's paying you, you don't want them to just be fixed. Otherwise, you lose money.

Stephanie Winn: You're looking at the incentive.

Warren Smith: True.

Stephanie Winn: Well, I think that's the mark of a mediocre therapist, someone who

Warren Smith: And then I see people I've, I've seen in the past people that treat therapy like yoga, or they treat it as this just a, okay, well, how long are you going to do this for the rest of my life? Because I enjoy it. It's like, all right, but I guess that's fine. I don't know.

Stephanie Winn: No, I, I would also challenge that. in patients. Because a lot, you know, that the expectations someone brings to therapy are important to check out at the beginning and throughout the process. And a lot of people just think it's like this thing that's good for you to do, or treat it like venting or journaling or something like that. And one thing I do respect about the leadership of the company that put on that training and so called gender affirming care, is that they, they would say, well, that's a really expensive cup of coffee. Because you're talking about a substitute for friendship, right? If you're just talking about like someone to meet with every week, and just like dish the scoop of what's going on in your life, that's an expensive cup of coffee. Where are your friends? Like, you can go to therapy because you have no friends and explore what's getting in your way of having meaningful friendships. And and that's a really good use of therapy, right? For the therapeutic relationship to be something where what's Yeah, what is getting in your way of doing other things that are good for you, whether it's meeting with friends or exercising or hobbies, right? But the point of therapy is not to be in therapy forever. I had, yeah, some people treat it like going to yoga. Some people treat it like, I had a patient once who called it like going to the dentist. Like she hated it. She hated it, but she thought it was good for her. So she forced herself to go, which that was something to explore.

Warren Smith: I think there's such a thing as correct and incorrect behavior. if that makes sense. But there, when we lose that objectivity, there's no such thing as incorrect behavior.

Stephanie Winn: Well, I think what you're talking about is pretty closely tied into one of the reasons that I'm not sure if I will go back to seeing patients or not. And it sort of ties to this idea of anomie, normlessness. You familiar with that term, anomie? A-N-O-M-I-E. So it means the lack of having a norm. And so like you mentioned, you're a fan of some of Jordan Peterson's work. So he talks about how it's fine to be on the fringes, but we have to know what the center is. We have to know as a society, what are the things that we all kind of generally agree humans should aspire toward, even if some of us fall short and all of us will fall short in various ways. But when there's no center, when it's all fringe, then you have chaos. And that's not good for society. That's not an environment that you can raise children in, for example. And I've, you know, I think, in some ways, although this podcast doesn't explicitly name this in the title or description, I think in many ways, this podcast is about the downfall of the mental health profession. It's about like, the descent into chaos of, of my field. I mean, so I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. And when the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy was founded, I believe was the 60s, maybe 50s. I looked it up, though. I looked up all this information at one point, like a year ago. When the AAMFT was founded, the majority of Americans were in marriages and families. Okay, like, we now live in a time when like, a lot of people are not in marriages or families, like people aren't having children, they're like, like, again, chaos, normlessness, right. And so I think there's that my profession has played a role in that in some ways, because I mean, there's a variety of perspectives in the field of therapy, there are some people who would still very much agree with you that, you know, we have to have a definition of normal. So I, you might have noticed on Twitter, my handle is at this time, it says Stephanie wins sanity specialist. And it's, it's cheeky. But I say that for a reason. Because sanity is the baseline of mental health, like, that needs to be the foundation above that is good. Below that is not acceptable, right? Like, and I'm not just talking about like, psychosis, I'm talking about other forms of delusion that have become quite acceptable. denial of reality, you know, so, so I think we have gotten to a point where it's really hard to be a therapist, because even people who do have that kind of sensible instinct to say, you know, we know a thing or two about human nature, we know a thing or two about what is good for mental health. And what is bad for mental health, we know a thing or two about what makes what makes people happier over time, and sadder over time. We know what's good for relationships and what's bad for relationships. We know that good relationships are good for society and bad relationships are bad for society. Like, there are certain things we know. And we have to operate, we have to be able to operate from some of that awareness in, you know, knowing what direction we would like to support people moving in as our patients. How do we balance that with free will and respect for autonomy? Of course, the patient's going to make decisions about their own life. But if our role as therapists or mental health professionals is being redefined so that a mental health professional cannot define what is mentally healthy, then we have a problem. And if that means that that therapist is being expected to sort of gaslight themselves into not into pretending that they don't know what they know, that's worrisome. And so, and I think a lot of therapists are just, you know, by nature, they're very open, compassionate people, but compassion can easily be exploited. And so it's like, there's, I think there's a distinction between a therapist creating an environment in which the patient can share things of an increasingly vulnerable nature, including things that might bring up shame. There's a distinction between a therapist being skilled in that and a therapist being sort of colluding with the patient's, let's say, infantile or self-indulgent worldview that justifies their every whim, no matter where it's coming from, as a valid equally relevant, equally healthy way of being.

Warren Smith: Yeah, that's what I was trying to articulate. I know nothing about this stuff.

Stephanie Winn: So it's, you know, what you do represent though, is the type of person who won't go to therapy for good reason. Like you said, like you haven't been to therapy in a long time. You have a lot of issues with the field. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth about whether you would ever see a therapist under any condition, but, um, I think that the counseling profession needs to hear from the people whose trust and respect they've lost, including some very good hearted and intelligent people who, you know, might at some point, benefit from some kind of help. Like if you I don't know if you went through a major loss or trauma or something like it might be nice to know that you had enough trust in our profession to feel like you could turn to someone but Maybe you don't feel that way right now. And I think that it's not just you. I'm honestly the same way, like about therapists. I think honestly, it's kind of an IQ thing though. Like, I think like the higher IQ a person is like, like, I think in some ways you need your therapist to like, maybe be like a little bit smarter than you. You know what I mean?

Warren Smith: Yeah, for sure. I'm sure there's, I don't, there's no reason for me to at all right now, but I'm sure there's events in life that, I mean, there's circumstances, I can, I can imagine scenarios where it would be needed. I think a lot of people do it just as you were saying. I think there's a lot of, something is shifted in people wanting to be part of a group, describing themselves as, Oh, I have anxiety and I have this and that. And it's this at the college level, like I've heard if my mom runs a study abroad program and she's, she's just noticed this uptick where it's like all the, and they all talk about it differently. Now it's the social contagion aspect.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah, that's that's one of the things that annoys me the most. It's the sort of the bastardization of psychiatric diagnoses, people just clinging to labels. And, you know, there are like. Lay people, especially the younger ones, just love certain aspects of pop psychology, the ones that they can use to label themselves, and it reminds me of like I don't know. I'm not I'm not going to get into it. But um, but they don't gravitate towards the psychology concepts that would dismantle their worldview. So for example, they don't gravitate towards the psychology concept of egocentronic versus egodistonic. Have you ever heard of that? No, you haven't. Most people haven't. Most people haven't unless they've gone to grad school for therapy. Most people have heard of dissociative identity disorder at this point, though. Why? Because it's on TikTok. Because there are people who grab that term out of the DSM. They're like, this describes me. Look at all my alters. Okay. But most people haven't heard of egocentronic versus egodistronic. By the way, I just want to give a shout out to my former guest, Mia Hughes, writer of the WPATH files report, because she is researching this issue as somebody who's not in the counseling profession, but who is just a good journalist. And she reached out to me to interview me about it because she found my video on the subject. I think more people need to look into this. So the thing is, if concepts like egocentronic versus dystonic, or secondary gain, or for that matter, the drama triangle, or more awareness of cluster B, cluster B is the one thing that has made it into the common popular culture. But if more if more people were aware of these concepts, they would expose how the way that people are relating to these diagnoses and labels that they're putting on themselves is not healthy. You know that, that they're building a sense of identity. around a label that is going to cause them more distress in the long run. And that maintaining this emotional attachment to having this label on themselves is going to make it more difficult to become a functional and happy human. That's a real problem. It's cute when you're 20. It is not cute when you're 40 and you're living in your mom's basement.

Warren Smith: But yeah, no, no, feel free to diagnose me or not diagnose, whatever you want to call it.

Stephanie Winn: Diagnose you? Why would I diagnose you?

Warren Smith: I don't know. Whatever. Decode, I don't know, whatever the word would be.

Stephanie Winn: What do you what do you want to know about yourself?

Warren Smith: Nothing really.

Stephanie Winn: Well, I'm not here to affix a label to you. And once again, this is not therapy anyway. It's just a podcast. Warren Smith, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure speaking with you today. So where can people find you?

Warren Smith: Yeah, on YouTube. W at Warren Smith dash Secret Scholar Society. Yeah. And you're also on Twitter. Yeah, on X. Sorry. W.T. Smith, 17. I should change that handle. I gotta look at how to do that.

Stephanie Winn: Well, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a pleasure.

Warren Smith: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

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.