You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

Swell AI Transcript: 86. Bernard Lane MP3.mp3
Bernard Lane: This is why people look at these laws and say the only conversion therapy that is happening on any scale in our societies is the conversion of gender nonconforming kids into stereotypically gender binary trans kids. And the further element to it, of course, is that some proportion of those gender non-conforming kids, if left alone, would grow up to be healthy, non-medicalised, gay, lesbian, bisexual. So to threaten a parent with a 10-year sentence when the state is using its power to entrench genuine conversion therapy is just outrageous.
Stephanie Winn: You must be some kind of therapist. Today, I am talking with an independent Australian journalist named Bernard Lane. He writes the newsletter Gender Clinic News, which you can find at genderclinicnews.substack.com. He covers the international debate over youth gender medicine. He's been a journalist for more than three decades and has worked for major publications before going independent. He has a lot of expertise on the gender crisis facing us today, so I'm excited to talk with him. Welcome, Bernard. Thank you for joining me.

Bernard Lane: Thanks for having me on, Steph.

Stephanie Winn: All right, so you're Australian, but you cover the international situation. It's been a while though since I've talked to anyone in Australia. I've talked to Dina McMillan has been in Australia. Oliver Davies is a detransitionary interviewed from Australia last year. But I know we have a fair amount of listeners there as well as people just interested in the international situation. So how is Australia doing perhaps relative to other countries with regard to gender clinics, laws, and reversing course of the trends in the field of medicine.

Bernard Lane: Okay. I think we're rather far behind in Australia in some ways in the sense that the gender clinic issue does not have political salience. So when health ministers are presented with awkward questions about it, they can just back it aside with slogans. We have had very rapid national development of the gender affirming model. So, we have some quite large gender clinics in public state children's hospitals in the cities, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, in particular. And in my state of New South Wales, which is the most populous state, the gender clinic provision is expanding dramatically as well. The media debate is improving. It was really non-existent and or misleading. I've been reporting since about mid-2019, and there've been a number of positive developments in the media coverage. Like Little Green Shoots, there's still a lot of misleading, highly personalized activist coverage of gender clinics, particularly by our public broadcaster, the ABC. But in a number of media outlets, there are journalists who are getting expertise in the subject and who are starting to do the normal, proper journalistic job of scrutinizing gender medicine, looking at the evidence, looking at the risks.

Stephanie Winn: So on the one hand, journalism is progressing, but you've also said that there are policies in the field of journalism in Australia about using certain types of language, and this is one of the reasons that you left your former job. So it must be like walking a tightrope for some of your colleagues.

Bernard Lane: I think that's right. I'm thinking in particular of my newspaper colleagues because they have an industry self-regulatory body that handles complaints. And one of the first things I discovered when I stumbled into this area in 2019 was that that body, the Press Council of Australia, had adopted an activist guideline for sensitive reporting of the trans subject. It had all the activist language in there about people being assigned a sex at birth. It had the usual language policing rules trying to force language into forms that fit with trans activism. And so the danger for my colleagues is that they will do the normal proper journalistic job of scrutinizing gender medicine and will attract complaints, which shouldn't be upheld, but maybe because of this guideline. The guideline reflects, I suppose, the wider environment where identity politics has become very dominant, and so it's just one of many pressures that journalists have to face.

Stephanie Winn: I'm sure many people be familiar with psychiatrist Jillian Spencer, who is from Australia, who you mentioned before we started recording. I've seen the clips and she's sort of like Australia's Jamie Reed. She's a whistleblower from within the field, sounding the alarm. And I believe when I saw those clips, they were from part of a larger docuseries perhaps, but I don't know the full context. Can you share with us what was the news coverage that Gillian Spencer was part of?

Bernard Lane: That was quite an important program because it was on a mainstream commercial TV program, Channel 7, and it was their journalistic investigations program. It's called Spotlight. And so Gillian was a key interviewee for that program. And that program was very significant because it was really the first mainstream commercial TV program reaching a very broad Australian audience, which came to grips with the central questions of the gender clinic debate. And it got a lot of views, both when it was broadcast and also on demand. So, I think that's a very significant development. It just wouldn't have happened a few years ago.

Stephanie Winn: What are the conditions that you think allowed for Australia to be ready for that segment?

Bernard Lane: Well, I suppose there were a number of clinicians and researchers who were troubled by gender medicine. they were willing to be quoted by name. When I started reporting in The Australian in mid-2019, there was a pretty brutal activist pushback when I started reporting because it hadn't been done in Australia really. The debate that had started in the UK had not yet reached Australia. I kept on reporting. We didn't stop reporting because of that pushback. And so over time, I think it was just a matter of journalists in other media outlets picking up that there was something here that deserved to be looked at. And reading was just a gradual widening of the journalistic window. I'm trying to think about what other conditions that might have led to the Channel 7. There were a number of politicians, rather isolated and not necessarily very influential, who had picked up the concern about gender clinics and were raising it. It's still the case that we don't have a major party federally. picking up this issue of gender clinics and promising, for example, to apply the kinds of restrictions that have been adopted in Sweden or Finland or the UK. I think that's a matter of time. We have a central right party, it's a coalition really, of liberals and nationals. And there's a number of their politicians who I think have been following this issue for some years now, two or three years at least. And I think it's just a matter of time before that party adopts a coherent policy to have an inquiry to apply restrictions.

Stephanie Winn: When you describe Australia as being behind Europe, Did it start off behind Europe and the United States in terms of the trend of gender ideology spreading? Did the whole social contagion take longer to reach Australia as well?

Bernard Lane: I don't think we really know. The striking thing when you look internationally is that the gender ideology and the program of demands is very similar country to country. Australia has a reputation as being an early adopter of technologies, new technologies. I don't know if that's a factor. It may be that in per capita terms, The amount of gender medicine happening here with minors is quite high by international standards. Whereas in the UK, they had, for England and Wales, a single national clinic, the Tavistock Clinic. In Australia, we have several clinics because we're a federation. and health is a state responsibility. And as elsewhere, there's a problem with lack of good data. So it's hard to make those comparisons. I think if you look at our political parties, The kind of woke progressivism that has colonized the left, it seems to be suddenly much stronger in Australia. I don't know if it's as extreme as it is in Canada. It was also present in New Zealand under the Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, that the politics have shifted there in New Zealand. And it may be that in Australia, until we have a centre-right opposition taking power in the state, it may be that we don't see much change in the treatment policies in Australia.

Stephanie Winn: This might sound like a bizarre question, but I'm curious about the influence of environment on kids. vulnerability to gender ideology. So amongst those of us who work with families of trans identified youth, you know, there are therapists like me, I also do parent consulting. Then there are people like Maria Keffler, who wrote a book called De-Cyst, De-Trans, De-Tox, and Gabrielle Clark, who started a program for coaching other parents called Firming Reality. And it seems to be the consensus amongst those of us who do this type of work with families that a change of environment is helpful if you can at all afford it. And while that's not feasible for some families, I have noticed that with the families I've worked with who've moved their kids to sunnier climates, that that seems to help. Being outdoors, of course, off of screens, doing things with their bodies, and being outside. You know, here in the Pacific Northwest, rates of depression and addiction are high, and it's partly because of how gloomy it is during the winter. Personally, it's a necessity for me to get away somewhere warm at least once during the winter. So when I think of Australia as someone who's never been there, I think of it as a hot and sunny place. I think of it as a place that's great for surfing, which seems like a really healthy pastime. And, and yet you describe this sort of cynicism in the youth culture. And when I talked to Olly Davies, He's a little older than your average trans identified youth is right now, but he was part of a really cynical culture. So I'm curious about both the social environment and the physical environment in Australia. Do you notice that climate or access to outdoor activities seems to have an impact? Or are there these kind of elements of cynicism in the youth culture, maybe hopelessness about, hopelessness about love, hopelessness about the economy, about robots taking their jobs, climate change? You know, what are all the things in terms of the social and physical environment in Australia that are influencing youth either way?

Bernard Lane: Okay. That's interesting. It's hard to know because in theory, a lot of the major Australian cities have climate that would encourage more outdoor activities. But I think that screen-based youth culture is very pervasive and manages to conquer environmental influences. It just so happens that The most radical state in Australia for gender ideology is Victoria, which is south of where I am, and it has somewhat gloomier weather, colder, and life is a bit more indoors. But I think that the radical nature of gender ideology there is to do with the political culture. not to do with the climate. I have heard from parents who did exactly what you're talking about, pulled the kids out of school, turned off the internet, moved somewhere where they encourage a daughter to work with horses or go rock climbing, that kind of thing. It's a big step, but I know that quite a few parents have either done it or, in retrospect, when they're considering how they could have prevented a child going down into the trans wormhole, they say that that's what they would have done. They would have changed the environment radically, both in terms of screens and the physical environment.

Stephanie Winn: Let's talk about another sunny place now, California. You were at the GenSpec conference, so was my friend and former guest Matt Osborne, who has a substack called The Distance. I was not at the GenSpec conference, but I noticed that you and Matt both recently wrote on your substacks about California, so it seems like it There was talk of California. And that's that's a sunny place. And yet, if sunshine were enough to inoculate a youth against the ideology, then we'd see a much different picture there. So what is the current debate over California?

Bernard Lane: I assume that Matt and I were galvanized by the same thing, which was that there was talk of, I think it's called a citizen's initiative, example of direct democracy, like a plebiscite. California has this system whereby if you gather a certain number of ballot signatures, you can get a proposal onto the ballot paper. Erin Friday, Californian lawyer, parent activist, someone whose daughter had been consumed by gender ideology but came back. She's my source of information for this, and she told me that she believes it is possible that despite the international reputation of California for being sort of a woke extreme outlier that the citizens initiative method might well be successful. She has opinion polling showing that there's, I think, a reasonable majority in favor of restricting under 18 medical transition. And she's also targeting the secret enabling of social transition by schools, and the protection of female sport in terms of fairness and safety from male body players being allowed in. I guess Matt and I probably saw the same dramatic contrast, because as you were saying, Victoria seems to be this source of endless extensions of the trans project, the idea of a trans sanctuary encouraging children in Republican states to flee and to access medicine safe from their parents in California.

Stephanie Winn: On that note, I don't know if you saw something that was going around on X with regard to some lawyers offering support to parents in Washington and in neighboring states. including mine, Oregon, because of these sanctuary state laws that effectively encourage children to run away. I don't know if Australia has anything like this or places in Europe that you've studied, but here in the states, our bluest states like California, Oregon, Washington, they're creating these sort of sanctuary state laws as they're sometimes referred to. that offer certain quote-unquote protections that aren't really protections at all, basically saying that if youth run away or are trafficked to the state or kidnapped by a non-custodial parent or what have you and end up in that state, that the state offers certain protections for that kid to, you know, basically become a ward of the state, gain access to so-called gender-affirming care. And so on and so forth. And so, of course, parents are up in arms because this threatens their rights to protect their children. And I have heard horror stories in various West Coast states about ways that the, you know, the powers that you would expect to support families like the police and Child Protective Services really not doing a damn thing for parents whose children have run away. So in Washington, it's not exactly a class action suit, but there's, I guess, a team of lawyers working with parents addressing this issue, challenging a law that puts parents at risk of their children running away to Washington specifically to get so-called gender-affirming care, and oftentimes to end up homeless and at risk of being trafficked. Whether you've been a longtime listener in this podcast or you're new, odds are you know I'm deeply concerned about the gender ideology crisis affecting today's youth. What's often not talked about are the medical practitioners who are pushing this ideology on vulnerable people, or the doctors who are taking a stand against them to protect kids. Which is why I was so excited to find a group that's doing just that. It's called Do No Harm. They're fighting for patients and against identity politics. And they have information for everyone, whether you're in the medical field, a concerned parent, or just a thinker who wants to learn more. Visit DoNoHarmMedicine.org slash Some Therapist to learn more. That's DoNoHarmMedicine.org slash Some Therapist.

Bernard Lane: Well, again, the ideology is the same. And we had a very prominent queer theorist, psychology academic in Australia, who had written that psychologists might have a duty to report other psychologists or parents to child protection authorities if those other psychologists or the parents were, quote, less than affirming. And we hear this repeatedly that the Failure or the refusal of a parent to go along with puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones or social transition is framed as abusive or neglectful triggering child protection authorities to come in. We had one case in a state in Australia where a girl, I think she was 17, had apparently made some statements suggesting suicidal ideation. And it was a long and convoluted case, but in the end, the courts agreed that the state protection authorities could hold on to this girl. She was 17. and that she didn't have to go back to the parents. And as far as we know, this was the first such case in Australia was, I think, 2020. And I do hear from talking to American parents that there are cases where the child protection authorities have been alerted to supposed abuse or neglect, which is really just parents believing that medicalization is not in the best interest of their children. I think there was a separate law, was it in California, whereby a family court judge in deciding custody of a child could take into account the fact that one parent was affirming, the other was not. I'm not sure if that became law, but are you aware of that?

Stephanie Winn: It sounds about right. I don't know for sure. I do think it became law just off the top of my head just knowing the state of things for parental rights in blue states is really grim. I mean, let's look at the logic of this for a moment, right? What is the evidence base? Well, there is none, but it all rests on this very shaky assertion, which I've debunked in many different places, that youth are at increased risk of suicide if they're not affirmed, right? Not looking at actually the long term outcomes, as well as this mentality of privileging the, well, for one thing, a split between the mind and the body as if they're at odds with each other and then privileging the mind over the body and the mind being linked with identity and all of that. And so this very, very shaky framework that that the body, the health of the body can be destroyed and this is all somehow worth it for something that exists within the mind, even though the long term outcomes for people who do go through with bodily destruction are not good. It's really quite frightening that the state holds so much power in these situations and anyone who's actually gotten up close and personal with The foster care system, as I have, as many therapists who cut their teeth in community mental health have experienced, it is so far from ideal. I wonder about the experience of people who are pushing for things like this, if they've actually worked with youth in foster care, seen what these homes are like, or reflected on the psychology of triangulating a youth and their parents.

Bernard Lane: Yes. I think it was at the Tavistock where children in care, I think that's the expression, kids looked after by state protection authorities were overrepresented in the caseload of the Tavistock. I think to write an article about this for a while, but I haven't got to it yet. Because if you think about the families where there's a disagreement about treatment, and often you have at least one parent questioning medicalization, Whereas kids in care, they don't have that possible defense. And as you say, when the state adopts gender ideology as a policy, it has remarkable powers to enforce it. And so I think that kids in care are disproportionately vulnerable.

Stephanie Winn: And that can go both ways. That can be because they can run away and become wards of the state and get access to the hormones and surgeries that they think are going to fix their problems. Or it can be that those are the youth that are most vulnerable in the first place. They're looking for a sense of belonging and explanation why it's not their fault that they have this trauma history or that they don't feel well, they're looking for that silver bullet. You mentioned the Tavistock. Let's go there. So the Tavistock, we're talking about England's national health system. And, you know, you mentioned Hannah Barnes, she wrote that book Time to Think that was about the closure of the Tavistock. But you also mentioned before we started recording that many people are confused about the status of things turning around in Europe. And I'll count myself in that category. I certainly am not completely up to date. I haven't read Hannah Barnes's book yet. And I know that there have been concerns that even though it is considered a win, that the Tavistock kids clinic, the Gender Identity Development Services, or whatever that stands for, that that was essentially told to shut down, even though that can be considered a win from some angles, In terms of child safeguarding, the fight is far from over there. So fill us in on the status of the Tavistock kids, England's NHS program, and how is gender treatment shaping up in the UK right now?

Bernard Lane: Well, I think one of the signs of the problem was the fact that the closure of the Tavistock kept on being pushed back further and further. Hilary Cass and the NHS had an idea of how a number of regionally connected clinics, hubs embedded within the mainstream health systems would pick up the caseload from the tapestole and begin treating gender distress in a more holistic way in the context of medical healthcare more generally. But There have been several worrying signals about the continuation of the influence of gender clinicians who have a more ideological gender fixated approach. Hannah Barnes has recently expressed her concerns about this. There is good reason to worry about the possibility of implementing the more nuanced and careful approach that's been set out by the Hilary Cass, the reviewer, in her interim report. And the problem is partly one of the culture of a therapist. Where is England going to find these new breed therapists who will look at gender distress in a non-ideological way? very difficult. And I think Hilary Kass in her report was careful in her language. She didn't denounce the gender referring model in a black and white way. And I think the reason for her careful language is that she's a realist. And I think she understood that they're going to have to work with some of the same clinicians who were associated with the problems of the So what do you do? I mean, it seems that a generational change may be needed. And it's not just a question of the university education of these therapists. Like the rest of us, we sit in a society which has certain ideological pressures. So even if you could overnight reinvent the clinical training and preparation of these people, it might not necessarily be enough. It's a very difficult problem. And I think another aspect of it is that some campaigners seem to think that Reform is a simple issue of litigation and the prohibition of these treatments. But in so many cities, we've got large numbers of kids, hundreds, sometimes thousands in each city, who have been told that they're uniquely suicidal. and that these treatments are lifesaving. And if the tap is just turned off overnight, that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy in some cases. So it seems that there's a sort of a need for psychiatric emergency planning. So there are so many problems And even though in other countries we look at the UK and think they're very lucky to have an inquirer as clearly independent and thoughtful as Hilary Cass, it's by no means an easy job for them. They're not out of the woods yet.

Stephanie Winn: Absolutely. And you raised the question of where are the therapists going to come from? So you're you're talking about the cultural shift that needs to happen for the legal shift to mean anything. And I want to say what you're talking about is really nothing new. In fact, as you were speaking, I was thinking of several former guests I've had on this show. So older British, usually psychoanalytically trained therapists. So Marcus Evans, he and his wife Sue Evans wrote the book on treatment of gender dysphoria. I've interviewed Marcus. Bob Withers. He first had a detrans client when I was a child in the 90s, Carol Sherwood. She's retired, but has come out of retirement to help get Critical Therapy Antidote started, which everyone who's a therapist who's a fan of this show should absolutely join Critical Therapy Antidote. They have a membership now. I can share more on that later. And then contrast the fact that these elder British psychoanalysts who know what's up and have all along, and who are rooted in basic principles of psychology, should be the one setting the tone. But then look what happens to younger people in the UK like James Esses, a fourth person on my list who was a guest on this show, right? James is younger and went to grad school a few years ago and ended up in major conflict with his program. And his story is well known. It's been told on many shows. He told it a little bit on my show, but we also just talked about kind of other international gender issues. And James couldn't continue along the path of progressing to become a therapist because he was standing up for the same principles that licensed, established therapists of an older generations like Marcus and Bob and Carol were all able to abide by in their practices. So I don't think it's necessarily that we need a whole new generation, because I think there are people in every generation. There are people of the older generation who want to remain true to classic psychoanalytic principles, and there are people in the younger generation who see what's happening and are troubled by it, like James. And I hear from people like that all the time. They are always invited to join my Locals community at some kind of therapist.locals.com for fellowship. People who are debating whether they can stomach the process of completing their master's degree or completing their practicum or internship hours because the field has been so captured. So I do think that there are a lot of people, many of them affiliated with While James's group is thoughtful therapists, and then Carol's group is critical therapy antidote. Thoughtful therapists is mostly in the UK, critical therapy antidote is international, UK and US mostly. I think that the willpower is there, but at the same time, given the direction that the grad programs have been moving in over the last several years. I mean, I completed grad school 10 years ago. I graduated in 2013. And I remember the social justice stuff creeping in, but it hadn't completely captured things. And this was in California. So if things had been captured entirely, I would have felt it being California. You know, but thinking about what's happened since then between 2013 and 2023 in the counseling field, I think now that a lot of people who aren't woke enough would have been ruled out, maybe not allowed to go to grad school or not motivated because of the nature of the field. So it's kind of like, what do we do with the fact that the system has been set up to filter for selecting social justice-oriented people to become therapists? And the field has been so lax with those individuals behaving in all kinds of anti-therapeutic ways and so strict and harsh on people like myself and James Esses and Bob Withers.

Bernard Lane: Well, that's an international problem too, isn't it? Where the professional organizations representing various health professions and in some cases, the regulatory bodies that handle complaints against practitioners have been captured by gender ideology. It's going to be difficult to unravel it. It's going to take time.

Stephanie Winn: Speaking of the regulatory bodies, that's a great question. This is something I don't really know about Australia. Here in the US, I know a little bit about conversion therapy laws from one state to another. I know obviously more about my state than others, but I am in touch with colleagues in different states. And as some might be familiar with, I'm a senior fellow at Do No Harm, where I have the pleasure of getting to advise and weigh in on, you know, draft legislation in other states. So I get a little exposure that way. So for listeners who aren't familiar, the best way to get caught up to speed if you haven't already is to listen to episode 11 with Helen Joyce, where I tell the story of what happened when my license was under attack under the false allegation of so-called conversion therapy. And so here in Oregon, we did successfully at least stall a bill that was proposed to expand our so-called conversion therapy ban. from people under 18 to people of all ages. I don't think that the state representatives were prepared to hear from people like me against this bill. And now they understand that it's at least a little more complicated. But for those who aren't familiar, what I'm trying to do to catch you up to speed is basically to explain that the term conversion therapy has been misused and expanded to this acronym Sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts so laws that were originally drafted simply for the purpose of protecting gay people from being abused by their counselors and and you know unscientific. Harmful methods like aversive conditioning shouldn't be used on these patients to try to decondition homosexuality. So laws that were written with that in mind then got distorted by the addition of gender identity and the conflation of gender identity with sexual orientation so that now it puts therapists in a very difficult position with regard to challenging or questioning a patient's ideas surrounding their so-called gender identity, which means that therapists are prohibited or might feel prohibited or inhibited or intimidated from exploring matters of gender identity in a way that could potentially lead to that person desisting or resolving their gender dysphoria naturally. So it's a very tense situation in many states in the US, wherever you have this sexual orientation and gender identity, which By the way, the definition of that has been changed nationwide, but how states regulate so-called conversion therapy, so-called sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts, that is something that varies state to state. So just kind of catching people up to what I know here in the US, what is it like in Australia with regard to how therapy is ruled?

Bernard Lane: Well, it's the same project. It's the same international ideology. It's the same deceptive tactics. We have three jurisdictions so far with laws against so-called conversion therapy. In no instance was any good evidence presented of a problem that needed to be fixed. There was seemingly little or no understanding that the effect of the laws might be to entrench the medicalised gender affirming approach of kids. Well, actually, in one jurisdiction in the state of Queensland, as a result of informed lobbying by the College of Psychiatrists, the law was modified in a way to try to create a bit more space for psychiatrists or health professionals more generally, who were engaging in treatment that they judge reasonably necessary or some such formula. But I have heard that even in that state, which does not have the worst set of conversion therapy laws in Australia, even in that state, the effect anecdotally has been that there are therapists just avoiding this area entirely. Because even if in a black and white way, a lawyer might advise a therapist that you have a defense, it's highly uncertain. And so good therapists are always in demand. They just switch to another area. So we have these laws in Victoria. Again, Victoria is our most progressive state. Their law involves 10 years prison, maximum sentence,

Stephanie Winn: We have a sort of- Wait, sorry, to clarify, 10 years prison for so-called conversion therapy?

Bernard Lane: Yes, and it's not just at health professionals, but anyone, a parent, exactly. It's extreme.

Stephanie Winn: Wait, wait, wait. We need to stop and talk about this. Before we talk about this, I just want to say I think you put it very well there that a lot of people don't understand, including lawmakers themselves, do not understand the connection between the so-called conversion therapy ban and basically entrenching affirmation-only therapy, which leads to increased risk of medicalization and sets you on this lifelong pathway. And I encountered that when I went to testify to my state representatives about this. I mean, I was sitting there telling them, as someone working in the field, here's what it looks like. And I basically said exactly what you said. And my state representative had the gall to look me in the eye and just dismiss me and say, well, that's not what this law is intended to do. And I'm like, isn't this coming from the same people who believe that impact is more important than intention? I'm telling you what it looks like here on the ground, and you don't want to hear it. OK, but back to this really important thing that you just said. Now, I'm hearing a few problems with that. For one, you're talking about a 10 year possible prison sentence over the crime of something that takes place, let's just clarify, only in speech. So we're not talking about a violent crime. So just the fact that there's something you can do with your speech that could result in 10 years in prison, I just needed to highlight that. And then second of all, they have expanded that. from therapists and not only even healthcare professionals, but they're now saying that parents who are not therapists at all, even if therapist happens to be your profession and you're a parent, in your role towards your child, you're not their therapist. that this so-called conversion therapy could somehow be applied to what a parent is trying to do in their conversation with their child. So does this mean then, or maybe you can explain all the things it means, because one thing I'm taking it to mean is that a parent that tries to dissuade their child from medicalizing could go to prison for that in Australia?

Bernard Lane: In theory, I suppose we haven't had a case that has been tested in the courts yet, but the situation is even worse in a sense, because in the letter of the law, there's the 10-year prison sentence. It applies not just to health professions, but parents. We have a body in Victoria, which is the Human Rights Commission, It has on its website all sorts of material supposedly explaining the effect of this ban on conversion therapy. The Human Rights Commission in Victoria claims that a parent who refuses to go along with puberty blockers for the child could be in breach of the law. Now, I've got an opinion from a lawyer who is independent and skeptical that that's wrong, that that couldn't happen under the Victorian law. But the situation is that the Victorian Human Rights Commission, which has given a role within this legislation, is telling the Victorian public that a parent who, no doubt because they believe it's in the best interest of the child, a parent who is resisting medicalization could be guilty of conversion therapy. There's another element, I think, the law requires proof of harm. But, as you know, that word harm has become expanded in such a way that it's meaningless. I'm not sure how the courts would define harm, but within gender ideology, words of disagreement equals psychic harm is in some way almost tantamount to violence. So, it's a very, very bad situation, and it's not surprising that campaigners in the UK who've been resisting the idea of these conversion therapy bans in the UK, they keep invoking the Victorian example as an example why it should not be implemented in the UK, because it's a very extreme law.

Stephanie Winn: This is so bizarre. And so just to help me wrap my mind around this, how would the law treat differently a parent that, let's say, did not want to give their child puberty blockers from, let's say, a parent that did not want to give their diabetic child insulin?

Bernard Lane: I don't know. I don't know whether or not a family court judge could give an order for the treatment of the child with diabetes. I guess this comes up with Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions, so there would be cases. I think that most mainstream people would accept that the authority of a parent over a child is not unlimited, but the way in which parental authorities invaded by these dishonest and deceptive laws is just quite remarkable.

Stephanie Winn: Indeed, because the best case, I mean, supposing I were to go out of my way to be charitable, to not so much be charitable, but to, let's say, steel man my opponent, right? Let's say I'm trying to make the strongest case for something I don't believe in here. So taking the perspective of those I disagree with, their perspective is that if a child demands puberty blockers, it's because that child knows who they really are inside and this is the correct treatment for their medical condition of so-called gender incongruence even though we don't want to pathologize gender dysphoria now it's all just gender incongruence we don't want to pathologize it but we do we need to treat it medically but anyway that that's the logic right is that Child knows who they are, and so it's therefore harmful to withhold the so-called treatment that they believe they're entitled to, and that therefore they're at increased risk of suicide. Now again, I've debunked the suicide myth in many places, but that's the line of thinking. So then, a parent refusing to give the so-called treatment According to that same line of thinking, I'm trying to categorize that the same way as a parent refusing any other medical treatment, all resting on the assumption that that's a medical treatment the child actually needs. Right. But this whole like, The idea that a parent could be accused of conversion therapy is just so backwards because conversion therapy legislation, whatever you think of it, and however conversion therapy is defined, which of course is highly up for debate, is about regulating the practice of professional psychotherapy. Like, you know, I am an LMFT, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. In the United States, we have LPC, Licensed Preferential Counselor. We have LMHC, Licensed Mental Health Clinician. We have all these different types of licenses. And there are boards specifically designed to regulate the practice of that profession. So it's just so weird to me that laws around how a particular profession is being practiced are then being extrapolated to impact a completely different issue, which is the medical decision the parent makes for their own child. The conflation is just so bizarre to me.

Bernard Lane: Yes. And the other outrageous element is that Each and every one of these laws that I've seen makes a specific exemption for the transitioning of children. With our laws, we have a commentary document that is published or the explanatory memorandum. In that document, The people behind the law say that we need to give this exemption to transitioning because otherwise, transitioning would be caught by the definition of conversion therapy and would become criminal. This is why people look at these laws and say, the only conversion therapy that is happening on any scale in our societies is the conversion of gender non-conforming kids into stereotypically gender binary trans kids. And the further element to it, of course, is that some proportion of those gender non-conforming kids, if left alone, would grow up to be healthy, non-medicalized, gay, lesbian, bisexual. So to threaten a parent with a 10-year sentence when the state is using its power to entrench But genuine conversion therapy is just outrageous. And this is another area where the failure of media reporting is crucial. Our public broadcaster, the ABC in Australia, has reported on this issue, referring to these laws as gay conversion therapy bans and quoting activists complaining about religious people. with virtually no mention or focus on the extension of these laws to cover gender identity, no discussion whether or not there's a parallel between sexual orientation and gender identity, no discussion of the fact that there's a range of people who have nothing to do with religious conservatism, but who are in various healthy professions, including psychiatrists, psychologists, and others, who are concerned about these laws. actually increasing the harm that these gender non-conforming kids are exposed to. It really is monstrous what has happened.

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, and what you're describing exactly fits with my experience of going to my state capitol and testifying, because at this hearing, the room was packed, and I was in opposition to the law. So the proposed legislation was, as I mentioned earlier, to expand our my state's conversion therapy ban from its current status of under 18 to people of all ages. And so the people in support went first. And because there were so many people there to testify on this issue, individual state representatives got to choose who their sort of priority testimony were to come from, basically experts. And so one of the very first people to be chosen as an expert to go up and speak in support of the bill was actually a former instructor of mine, someone I'd done 30 hours in continuing education under, and that was striking. And she and other people who support conversion therapy bands led by saying to the panel of 11 state representatives, at least three of whom I believe were gay men, these activists led with saying, you're about to hear from Christian, conservative, ex-gays, and people who don't support gay rights. And, you know, they were saying all of this and, you know, which on the one hand made me anxious but also made me feel like I had a secret weapon because I'm like, oh, they have no idea. who the opposition really is. And so they weren't expecting to hear from me and my colleague Elise Weaver, who's a fellow therapist, and Camille Keefe, a detransitioner, and some of the other people who went to testify in opposition of this bill. So absolutely all the testimony really conflated gender identity with sexual orientation, conflated the opposition with people who hold certain religious and political beliefs, and I guess that's at least one weakness in our opposition that we can be thankful for, the fact that they're not really familiar with who we are or what we believe.

Bernard Lane: I think they are familiar, but they are simply repeating the talking points. If you think about the state of media reporting, they've had some years in which the idea that any sort of skepticism in this area of gender medicine is right-wing religious. And the media keeps on reporting that. They won't report, for example, that the LGB Alliance is a critic of these conversion therapy bans. I don't know how much of it is laziness, because the idea that there's progressive medicalization on the one side and right-wing religious nut jobs on the other is a very kind of simple and elegant journalistic narrative, and it becomes more difficult a journalist if they have to explain that there's a split within this supposedly monolithic LGBTQIA2S plus rainbow community. And it's the job of journalism to explain the nature of that split and the implications it has for gender medicine and for these conversion therapy bans. But until the media gets its act together, there won't be much pressure on the politicians or the so-called experts who favor these laws to honestly grapple with the issues.

Stephanie Winn: Speaking now of journalism, that's your area of expertise. Before we started recording, I had asked a bit about your story of how you left your position with a major publication and went into independent journalism, and you said you're not sure that it's the most interesting story for people to hear and also that it's convoluted so no pressure to share the details but I do think it's important for listeners to understand for context that that is your background and that you encountered some of the dilemmas in journalism and some of them probably unique to Australia then many of them probably have a lot in common with the capture of your industry worldwide. So can you tell us a bit about the state of journalism on gender issues these days?

Bernard Lane: Okay. Well, when I sort of stumbled into this area in mid-2019, I went back and read as much media coverage as I could find on this subject. And I was struck by the nature of it. It was highly personalized. It was a motive. It was presenting engaging, articulate children, trans kids who just wanted to be who they are, and their worried parents and the courageous doctors who had found these lifesaving treatments for them. And there really wasn't any discussion of the risks of these treatments, the supposed evidence for their efficacy And so I tried to put more of a focus on the policy questions and on the data or the lack of data, taking a lead from media coverage in the UK, where that kind of approach was being practiced by a number of outlets. The Times, London, The Economist got involved, The Observer. BBC Newsnight, of course, Hannah Barnes and Deborah Cullen. And I then found that there's a media self-regulatory body called Press Council of Australia. They had adopted a new sensitive trans reporting guideline. And it shot through with all of the activist jargon, and it is discouraging journalists from using language that is accurate and trying to nudge them to use the activist gender ideology language. And I wrote an article at the time saying that this guideline would make normal journalistic reporting of gender medicine even more difficult. At that stage, I had never had a complaint against me in 30 plus years of reporting. continued the reporting. There was one particular gender-affirming clinician who was very prominent because she ran the largest children's hospital gender clinic. She was the lead author on radical gender-affirming treatment guidelines, and she was the president of the WPATH local outfit called the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health. She had also been very active in the media for a number of years and had received, in my opinion, completely uncritical coverage, even though quite a few of her statements invited some close questioning. So, a fair bit of my coverage focused on her, given her institutional and influential position. She filed a massive complaint against me. I had always approached her for comment, by the way. I had suggested to my newspaper that we offer her a spot on the prestigious opinion page. That was refused. My editors were not too worried about the complaint because they said, look, you've done it by the book. You've always gone to this doctor for comment. And I would reproduce things she had said on the record from some years ago where she was putting her side of the story. But then to the editor's surprise, the complaint against me was partly upheld. And what happens with that complaint is that a banner is put across each article that it relates to. And because she was in many of the articles, this banner was put across some 40 articles saying that this article has been the subject of a partially upheld complaint. There was a link where people in theory could go and read the ruling. The ruling, in my opinion, was completely unpersuasive and involved factual errors. But it seemed to me that many readers would just decide that the coverage had been discredited, because the complaint was not clear in what exactly it was upholding. It was not clear what in those 40 articles was wrong. There were many, many other people quoted in those articles, and yet a sort of a general smear was cast over it. So, I decided at that point, I think this was around 2021 when Genspec was about to emerge, and I decided I wouldn't write anymore about gender medicine for my newspaper because I wasn't prepared to accept the smearing of my work or of my good faith contacts. And then, as is the way newspapers these days, there was a redundancy around, so I took a redundancy and I went to Substack where, of course, I have autonomy And I can range internationally. I don't have to always find an Australian angle. And I think it's very valuable to have that international perspective because this is a genuinely, it's a globalized issue. It's part of globalization, I suppose.

Stephanie Winn: I see. So these guidelines, do other countries have similar guidelines?

Bernard Lane: Yes. GLAAD in the States has a guideline, and in fact, our press council guideline references GLAAD's language policing rules. So for example, GLAAD doesn't want you to refer to someone as biologically male. Wow. What else? I think they had a commercial media regulator, which had a … I think it was caught up with Stonewall and Stonewall's, what was it called, diversity champions program. So, we have a similar thing in Australia, whereby there is a former gay rights body which is now in effect a trans rights lobby. And it runs a scheme which is wonderful for them because employers compete to show that they have a LGBTQIA2S plus friendly workforce. And there are awards at the end of each year. So our federal department of health which ought to be capable of an independent and critical view of gender medicine, is a member of this program. And this program in Australia is based on the UK program, Diversity Champions, run by Stonewall, which unraveled dramatically after some very good investigative reporting about the malign influence of Stonewall within all sorts of institutions in the UK, including in government.

Stephanie Winn: Still thinking about those guidelines like the ones that GLAAD has in the United States. Would this explain why when people are reading news articles, let's say about a male sex offender who did horrible things to women, but it says she and then you have to dig down And then, you know, somewhere in the fifth paragraph, there's like something that you're like, oh, yeah, this is this is a man. Right. But like I've heard so many stories of people being genuinely confused by the way that things are written. And is that attributable to those types of guidelines?

Bernard Lane: I think it is. It's a bit of a loop because the guidelines reflect identity politics activism in the general society and culture. The GLAD guidelines, I'm assuming it's up to media organizations whether or not they want to use them. And I think maybe AP, the Associated Press has its own guidelines and they may well have been influenced by GLAD. So it's up to media organizations. whether or not they follow these guidelines. In Australia with the guidelines of the press council, they are in theory advisory guidelines, which is quite misleading because that implies that the journalists don't have to pay attention to them, which is wrong. in when the press council is deciding a complaint, it's up to the press council whether or not they use those guidelines to interpret the general complaint handling process. So it's utterly unaccountable They don't even reveal in the ruling whether or not they've relied on those guidelines. But what you say about confusion is exactly right, because at a theoretical and a practical level, so much of trans is about language. And I remember having an argument with an intermediate editor. I had a phrase, a trans woman, comma, who is biologically male, and the editor said, well, it's just a trans woman. You don't add biologically male. pointed out that lots of people in the mainstream, when they see a trans woman, sometimes they think that means an actual woman who is trans, not an actual man who identifies as a woman. And the trans project just cannot succeed without confused and inaccurate language. And the priority of journalism has to be accurate and clear language.

Stephanie Winn: Absolutely. And it's like we have, I don't know how we're going to assess the cost to how much information has been lost on things, things we need to know about the differences between men and women like crime statistics are being distorted. I think I read somewhere, I can't remember. where this was it was it was on X but something about how like 9% of men and 6% of women have sex dolls. And I remember reading that thinking 6% of women women or 6% of women using the circular definition of women which is a woman is anything that identifies as a woman. Right. Yeah. But I mean, the differences between men and women are important in our understanding of science, technology, medicine, health. And by the time this episode comes out, I will have released my episode with Leonard Zaks, which I highly recommend his work on understanding gender differences and why they matter. So we talk about this. But let's talk about the international situation again a bit because I have a listener question. So for those who haven't caught on by now, if you would like to ask a question of me or any of my future guests, you can join my locals community. It's only $8 a month. It's at somekindoftherapist.locals.com. I tell you who my upcoming guests are going to be. You can post questions for those guests, which I promise to ask. You can also ask me questions in the Locals community. Why? Because I get too many emails. DMs and comments, and I won't respond to them all. But if you join my locals community, I promise to prioritize your questions. So on that note, I alerted my locals community that you would be joining us. We have a question here from 40 something. She says, which countries with clinics that were medicalizing children are now stepping back their gender affirmation offerings or have already cut down on them? Is there hope that the U.S. will also reverse course?

Bernard Lane: Well, I think the count of Republican states now with laws prohibiting or restricting pediatric transition is 22. So that's quite significant. Internationally, the easiest way to sum it up is that there is a shift towards greater caution in treatment policy in Europe. That first happened in Finland. And in Finland, The shift was driven by the clinicians, in particular the lead psychiatrist, Rita Kertukaltiala, and they also had the first systematic review of the evidence base, and they produced new guidelines. They declared that medicalized gender change of minors was an experimental practice. And they gave much greater priority to mainstream mental health responses to the many other problems that these kids have, because they discovered that if these kids have various psychiatric problems before transitioning, transitioning doesn't solve them. And so the focus should be on dealing with the psychiatric issues first. Sweden was the next country to shift. Again, systematic review of the evidence base showing how poor it was for puberty blockers cross-sex hormones with minors. And there's a public health agency there which adopted a new, more cautious policy. And the idea seems to be that pediatric transition would be by and large, perhaps mostly restricted to clinical trials. And then the next is the UK, or in fact, it's actually England within the UK, the National Health Service. They had systematic reviews of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and found that the the evidence base was very, very weak, very poor, very low certainty. And the proposal there by the National Health Service, informed by the work of the independent reviewer, Hilary Cass, is to limit puberty blockers to properly controlled clinical trials except in exceptional circumstances, and it's not really clear what exceptional circumstances means. So that's a proposed new service specification, which would be very different from the specification under which the Tavistock operated. France is sometimes referred to as a country that has shifted to more cautious policy. I don't think that's correct. What people are referring to is a media statement put out, I think in 2022, by France's National Academy of Medicine. And Francis Academy of Medicine was calling for great caution in the use of gender medicine. In fact, they referred to some of the extraordinary growth in patient numbers in Australia in their statement. They also referred to the Karolinska Institute in Sweden leading the shift to caution. But in France, as far as I know, the relevant National Health Authority has not shifted to a more cautious position. And there's a working group looking at a treatment guideline, and my French contacts told me that that working group appears to be dominated by the WPATH mentality. So it's France. In Denmark, it seems that the shift to caution was implemented by the main national gender clinic because like Finland, they realized that the adolescent onset kids who were seeking hormonal interventions did not resemble the patient group in the original Dutch studies who supposedly benefited from transition. In Norway, they have an independent healthcare investigator and there were complaints to that body. It did an investigation. It did look at the evidence. It didn't do a formal systematic review, but it concluded that Again, medical agenda change for minors is experimental, and Norway's Directorate of Health is the body that has to shift. There has to be a review of a very gender-affirming guideline there. and the Directorate of Health has been sending mixed signals. So again, as far as I know, Norway has not yet … We don't have a situation in Norway yet where the relevant public health authority has adopted a new, more cautious treatment policy. I'm trying to think if there are any other European countries where there's anything like a shift, of course. I can't immediately think of any. There's confusion about this because it is complicated. It's not very well reported. And there are trans activists and clinicians in Australia and in the US who recklessly or willfully misrepresent what's happening in Europe. So they will say, for example, in Sweden, Sweden, they will say Sweden is being misrepresented. In Sweden, pediatric transition has not been subject to the blanket ban. strictly true, but quite misleading because the shift in Sweden is dramatic. So, what was a routine medical treatment available to minors is now going to be very narrowly restricted and mostly confined to a clinical trial. In other cases, there are campaigners against gender medicine who over-interpret a shift in one European country or another. France is an example. The intervention of the National Academy of Medicine in France is certainly significant, but it's not a government body. So the treatment continues there under the gender-affirming model.

Stephanie Winn: You can now watch No Way Back, the reality of gender-affirming care. This medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation, is the definitive film on detransition. Stream the film now or purchase a DVD. Visit nowaybackfilm.com and use promo code SUMTHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow us on Twitter at 2022affirmation or on Instagram at Affirmation Generation. write something very insightful about this on X recently, that she shares the same worry, not because there's real truth in these claims that if, you know, if you don't trans them, they'll commit suicide, but because they've been told that and suicide is suggestible and youth are suggestible, right? So we've kind of created what I believe you called earlier a self-fulfilling prophecy at least a risk of self-fulfilling prophecy for these youth. And that's certainly what I see happening in the families that I talk to, because I talk to families who've had kids hospitalized with suicidal ideation and trans ideation, and every time It seems to not follow the protocol that we would use with any other type of suicidal ideation because mental health clinicians are trained to assess suicide risk factors and protective factors, the urgency and severity, the level of care required. And most of the times, if you have a young person in the care of their parents who's hospitalized for suicidal ideation, or let's say brought to the emergency room to be assessed, Usually the stay is very brief because typically it can be assessed that they're not at immediate risk or that they've de-escalated away from immediate risk and that their parents can provide a safe enough environment at home that as long as they're following through on those next steps like getting the kid into therapy, There's no immediate risk, right? The parents can make sure that if they have weapons, they're kept in safes. If they have medicines and sharps, they're also locked up. There are frequent checks and things like that in combination with therapy, maybe an intensive outpatient program, maybe medication, maybe a DBT group. There are services that can be provided to minimize the length of time the child actually has to spend in a full-blown hospital facility. But every time I've seen a story, heard a story from a parent about a time that a child was brought to a hospital with suicidal ideation and a trans identity, that kid was kept there way longer than you would expect. And the hospital made the whole focus about convincing the parents to get on board. uh, with the name change and the pronouns and everything, thus triangulating the child and teaching them that this is what I do next time I get into a fight with my parents over the next step of affirmation or transition that I want from them and making the child feel powerful, but at the same time, uncontained, unprotected from themselves, triangulated by the system. And, uh, it's a very dangerous situation. I also discussed this with Jamie Reed in that recent episode. So all of that being said, I think we are You know, you're right to worry about the self-fulfilling prophecy and the suggestibility of what happens when you've taught an entire generation that they can and even should feel suicidal and express that as a manifestation of this identity that they've built their whole sense of belonging around, that they've built their entire narrative around. You can't just undo that by changing the policies. You know, it's it's a dangerous sort of precarious situation that we've put these youth into. So I wanted to run that by you and ask, in addition to that, what are your thoughts on the barriers to change in terms of culture, mentality, beliefs, as well as political will?

Bernard Lane: For there to be change, there needs to be much better media reporting, more accurate, more balanced media reporting. One of the other problems is the way in which gender medicine has been framed as progressive, and therefore anyone worried about it is regressive, religious right-wing, et cetera. with center-left parties internationally, many of them have a fierce attachment to the gender affirming way. And clearly a lot, we don't know the numbers, but there's a significant number of voters for those center-left parties who are deeply worried about gender medicine. Presumably there would be some people within those parties as well who are worried. So the question is, how does that situation change such that government can respond to this medical crisis on the basis of accurate information and not a political frame? I don't know what the answer is to that. Another problem is the capture of medical societies, you know, most dramatically in the US, the American Academy of Pediatrics. How does that unravel? How does the AAP get to a position where it actually has a credible and informed policy in this area?

Stephanie Winn: You know, they've been sued. Yeah. That's big news just in case anyone hasn't heard it yet. I believe we now have 11 detransitioner lawsuits in the U.S. and Canada, so North America, and the first one to name the American Association of Pediatrics as a defendant, along with Rafferty, his first name, and Michelle Forcier.

Bernard Lane: That's right. And the suggestion in that lawsuit is that the Academy knew that it did not have the evidence to justify that guideline, and that it also knew that the evidence base had been misrepresented because clinical psychologist James Cantor had published his devastating fact-check paper very soon after. I think he published that in 2019. And since that time, the Academy has been unwilling or unable to rebut the Cantor critique. And so the suggestion in the lawsuit is that this involves fraud and conspiracy. I've got no idea what the prospects are in the lawsuit, but it makes for a dramatic read.

Stephanie Winn: Well, I think it's a fair accusation. Why would a medical organization publish a policy statement or make recommendations as to medical guidelines that should be followed if it's not rooted in evidence, especially if you're recommending that people with healthy bodies receive rather novel, experimental and permanent so-called treatments. I mean, you've got to have a substantial evidence base to back that up. That's why, you know, and I said this in my interview with Jamie Reid, too, like that's why people like me believed it at first when we're being taught this because you're being told these absurd things and you think, well, it doesn't sound intuitive, but an expert is telling me in a whole other room of, you know, master's level clinicians that this is the truth and the way and so it has to be based on something.

Bernard Lane: Yes. Although, one way to look at it is that this is not really a normal form of medicine. It's a hybrid of identity politics, harnessing medical technology, And so- Transhumanist. Yeah, it's a political project. I suspect that a lot of people who are caught up in the identity politics don't see transhumanism as the next step. I think that's really a very narrow elite lobby pushing that, but- Maybe they don't realize they're caught up in transhumanism. Well, maybe. I suppose you could argue that that's a logical extension, but to me that's a rather more remote concern. And there is enough of the identity politics at the moment to derange many otherwise mainstream institutions and to make them ignore or corrupt their mission so that they can harness themselves to this cause which they think casts them in a moral and historic light.

Stephanie Winn: While on that uplifting note, I'm thinking about how to how to wrap this up in a more positive way. So let me just ask you, what encouraging news do you see? Is there any reason for hope?

Bernard Lane: Yes. The GenSpect conference in Denver, I thought was tremendously encouraging. There seemed to be so many sensible, experienced, and thoughtful people. were turning their minds to the many dimensions of the problem raised by youth gender medicine, I think there were at least two new organizations launched there. And there was a great line from the political scientist Wilfred Reilly, because everyone was asking the question, well, where are we in the gender war? Who's winning? And his response was, I think he's referring to the Denver conference, he says, this is Gettysburg, The larger side with the better ideas is getting organized. And I think that's true because the whole gender clinic project has been pushed through behind the scenes by elites. It's never had any kind of informed mainstream support. And when the nature and implications of youth gender medicine is properly explained, the mainstream will reject it. One other encouraging thing, I think on social media this morning, I saw a tweet from a detransitioner and I realized I hadn't seen her online for a while. And she was tweeting that her life wasn't ruined and it's just got better. And there was a photo, presumably her hand and a tiny baby's hand.

Stephanie Winn: Grease, I just saw that right before we talked today.

Bernard Lane: Yeah. And, um, you know, and she had written before about how she had felt at various points that she had ruined her life and that's not the case. And I think there's been a number of detransitioners having, having babies. Indeed.

Stephanie Winn: Yeah. And, um, yeah, certainly grace is not the first de-transitioner to have a healthy baby. And I'm so happy for her and it must be so bittersweet for these new moms to, um, you know, for those who aren't able to breastfeed to, you know, on the one hand, have the victory and the joy of new life. And on the other hand, still experience that loss and that limitation. That is something I would like to cover on a future episode if there are any transitioners listening to this who have moved on to have children and would like to talk about that experience. I would very much like to highlight it. Another thing that's been really interesting to me is to see How many have turned to religion and to really conservative religions like Catholicism to find something of value in that, something very grounding in the rituals and in the conservative sexual ethos. I know many detransitioners have felt harmed by the sort of anything goes don't kink shame, you know, sexual ethos of the 21st century and are looking for something with with principles to ground and guide and protect them. We know that there are many detrans young women who have honestly admitted that the messages they were sent about what it was to be a young woman were terrifying and that that was part of what led them to wanting to escape being a young woman. So at the risk of dragging things back down by talking about that I just want to say congratulations to Grace on her new baby and let's celebrate the resilience of the human body that even though these young women have been hurt and harmed that their bodies are powerful and resilient and I can hardly imagine what life is going to be like for the generation that comes after this, for the babies of the detrans moms and what stories those moms and dads will be telling their children about how to make sense of these crazy times that we lived through in the early 21st century. Fingers crossed. Best wishes. Okay. Well, with that said, Bernard, is there anything we talked about earlier that you wanted to follow up on? No. Okay. So we'll wrap it up there and let people know where they can find you. So you have your Substack, genderclinicnews.substack.com.

Bernard Lane: Or you can just find it on genderclinicnews.com.

Stephanie Winn: Oh, okay. That's convenient. And they can follow you on X at?

Bernard Lane: Ah, at Bernard underscore Lane, I think. But, you know, yeah, I'm a bit of an X addict.

Stephanie Winn: I understand. I call it Twitter. I actually have a listener who every time I say Twitter on my newsletter or podcast, she writes me to say, love your podcast. Please call it X. Twitter was the organization that silenced people and X is on our side. So shout out to that listener for her continual reminders. It's always Twitter to me, but Twitter, X, whatever it might be. Well, Bernard, thank you so much for your time today. It's been a pleasure.

Bernard Lane: Lovely to talk to you. 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 Parents, at nowaybackfilm.com. Special thanks to my producers, Eric and Amber Beals at Different Mix, and 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.