#1509 - Abigail Shrier

Joe Rogan (0:01)

Hello, Abigail, how are you?

Abigail Shrier (0:02)

I'm doing great, how are you?

Joe Rogan (0:04)

Thanks for doing this, appreciate it.

Abigail Shrier (0:05)

Thanks so much for having me on.

Joe Rogan (0:07)

Irreversible Damage, The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.

Boy, that's a hot buttons object, right? That is a, this is a minefield.

Abigail Shrier (0:18)

It shouldn't be, though.

Joe Rogan (0:19)

No?

Abigail Shrier (0:19)

It really shouldn't be.

Joe Rogan (0:21)

No, it shouldn't be, but, so I think we should probably establish some things, like, up front, right? Some people, surely, as adults, are transgender.

Abigail Shrier (0:33)

Of course.

Joe Rogan (0:33)

Yes.

Abigail Shrier (0:34)

Of course, I interviewed a lot of them.

Joe Rogan (0:36)

And we fully support that, right?

Abigail Shrier (0:39)

I have friends who fall into that category.

Joe Rogan (0:42)

Your concern is about very young children.

Abigail Shrier (0:46)

Teenage girls. Has nothing to do with adults who are transgender, okay? Many of whom are amazing people. They, you know, went through mental health, you know, therapy, and they decided they made this decision. They suffered with discomfort in their bodies from the time they were young.

And as adults, they made a decision to transition, fully support them, has nothing to do with my book.

Joe Rogan (1:10)

What was the motivation to write this book? And if it's about teenagers, why is there a very young girl on the cover?

Abigail Shrier (1:18)

Well, it-

Joe Rogan (1:19)

This is like the cover, it looks like a four-year-old.

Abigail Shrier (1:22)

Right, it does. I mean, obviously I didn't do the cover, but I think the cover is very good because I think it's supposed to evoke what we've lost in our whole generation. Well, yeah, she's- I assume her uterus.

Infertility is what's-

Joe Rogan (1:37)

Oh, infertility.

Abigail Shrier (1:38)

Yeah, that's what happens. I mean, I got involved in this. This wasn't a personal issue for me. In fact, it was an issue originally I thought I was gonna avoid.

A reader wrote to me, I write most often for The Wall Street Journal, and a reader wrote to me and she said, listen, I've tried to get every mainstream journalist to pick this up. No one will touch it, but my daughter got caught up in this. All of a sudden, she went off to college, all of a sudden with her friends, she had a lot of mental health issues, anxiety, depression, and all of a sudden with her group of friends, they all decided they're trans, and she went on hormones, and this is happening to parents all across the country, teenage girls, all of a sudden deciding with their friends that they're trans, wanting surgeries and hormones and getting them.

And at first I thought, I don't need this. And so I tried to get another journalist to take it up, a real investigative reporter. I'm not, I'm an opinion journalist usually. You know, that's what I've done. And I couldn't get someone to take it up.

Joe Rogan (2:27)

Because it's such a minefield, because...

Abigail Shrier (2:30)

Yeah, because it's a minefield, because for some reason, the activists who are not representative of transgender adults that I've met at all, but the activists had convinced the world that because, you know, they object to anyone's transition being questioned, we can't talk about a mental health issue facing teenage girls.

Joe Rogan (2:53)

Now, I've heard there's an issue with some teenage girls who are on the spectrum, who wind up getting sort of roped into this idea that that's what's wrong with them. Is that one of the things you cover in your book?

Abigail Shrier (3:08)

Yeah, I actually don't deal with that specifically very much. And the reason is that's a whole book in and of itself.

Because it is true that a lot of girls who are high-functioning autistic, and I did interview some experts in autism, and that's when I realized that's a book of its own, which is that a lot of girls who are high-functioning autistic, you know, they tend to fixate. And they are particularly susceptible to fixating on the idea that they might be a boy when it's introduced to them. So yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. And they are one part of this phenomenon, but they're a big part.

Joe Rogan (3:43)

So the teenage girl part, so you're talking about teenage girls that are susceptible to influence, or you're talking about teenage girls that are confused. Like, why are there so many teenage girls that are going in this direction? Like, what do you think is happening?