Pod Insights The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast 531. Irreversible Damage at Fourteen | Detransitioner Clementine Breen About this episode Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down with Clementine Breen, a child who was moved through the transgender pipeline and has since de-transitioned. Together they walk through her story (from early sexual abuse to the daunting decision to undergo affirming surgery), the confusion and fallout thereafter, reorientation, and her lawsuit against the doctor who led her astray.
Clementine Breen is a de-transitioner who experienced early sexual abuse before having her gender dysphoria misdiagnosed as being transgender. Top surgery was sold to her at age 13, all the while her parents were told the atrocious “dead daughter or living son” lie. She is currently embroiled in a landmark lawsuit against her former doctor, Dr. Olson Kennedy.
This episode was filmed on January 1st, 2025.
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Transcript 15,733 words · 2 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Jordan B. Peterson? Did you tell them about the abuse?
0:02 Speaker 01 I did not.
0:03 Jordan B. Peterson? Well, how much investigation into your history took place?
0:06 Speaker 01 Very little, because the second we got into my history, it just came crumbling down. In my referral, it says that I had held a male identity since childhood, besides just physical discomfort with my body and just feeling disconnected from girls. There was really no sign of prior gender dysphoria.
0:21 Jordan B. Peterson? Discomfort with your body and feeling disconnected with girls, that's called puberty.
0:25 Speaker 01 Right. I was already cleared for surgery, so I traveled to San Francisco to recommend Olson, the specific doctor.
0:32 Jordan B. Peterson? Why the specific doctor?
0:34 Speaker 01 Because he doesn't have age limits.
0:36 Jordan B. Peterson? No age limits?
0:37 Speaker 01 Yeah. What's interesting about my case too is, even in my referral notes, which the surgeon saw, there's conflicting information. So immediately, you can tell it's sort of rubber stamped and they didn't really look through it.
0:49 Jordan B. Peterson? So now you wake up after surgery.
0:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
0:53 Jordan B. Peterson? What's that like?
1:08 Jordan B. Peterson? Hello, everybody. My guest today is a young woman who has quite a terrible story to tell. But before you can understand why I have her as a guest and why she's doing what she's doing, there's some individuals that I need to familiarize you with in some detail to set the context properly. And I'm going to read that. First and foremost among those is Dr. Joanna Olson Kennedy. Dr. Olson Kennedy serves as the medical director of the Center for Trans Youth Health and Development at Children's Hospital, Los Angeles.
1:51 Jordan B. Peterson? That's currently the largest transgender youth clinic in the U.S. Dr. Olson Kennedy has authored, or co-authored, numerous studies on transgender youth concerning such topics as chest reconstruction and its effects, the development of so-called gender identity, the physiology of response to gender-affirming hormones, and the consequence of pharmacologically-induced puberty blockade. In 2015, she led a $10 million NIH-funded research project to study the effects of so-called gender-affirming medical practice aimed at youth.
2:34 Jordan B. Peterson? This study was a major enterprise and very financially significant by the standards of clinical investigation, one deemed publicly the largest such project in America. What were the study's results? As far as we can determine, no evidence emerged whatsoever of improvements in mental health in consequence of pharmacological blockade of puberty, which is, by the way, the purpose of such blockade. Why or why not? Well, Olson Kennedy hypothesized, after the fact, which is not a scientifically appropriate thing to do fundamentally,
3:17 Jordan B. Peterson? that this was because most of the children were already doing well when the study began. Why the need then for puberty blockers? Given their clear danger and the dangers of the surgical road ahead they so often establish? In any case, the notoriously progressive New York Times reported that Olson Kennedy elected not to publish her study results so that political opponents of gender-affirming care could not use the results as an argument against the use of puberty blockers. It shouldn't be necessary, except in this insane time, to point out that the artificial suppression of undesirable findings warps the entire scientific and medical enterprise,
4:01 Jordan B. Peterson? and that's the point, as well as being utterly unconscionable, given the degree of public funding for the inquiry and the motivated psychological and social consequences of abandoning it.
4:16 Jordan B. Peterson? Olson Kennedy is not the only person named in the lawsuit mounted by today's guest, nor is her place of work, Children's Hospital, Los Angeles, the only institution identified and affected. Dr. Scott Mosser, a surgeon in San Francisco, has served or exploited, depending on your viewpoint, transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive patients for more than 13 years. He's board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgeons, co-founder of the American Society of Gender Surgeons, and founder of the Gender Institute at St. Francis Memorial Hospital. That workplace,
4:58 Jordan B. Peterson? formalized its gender institute in 2016, has received numerous grants to fund gender-affirming healthcare services and is also a target of the suit. Now that we have these players and places named and established, let us turn to my guest. I was privileged today to speak with Ms. Clementine Breen, currently a 20-year-old UCLA theater student and detransitioner. I discovered Clementine's story through one Chris Elston, a fellow Canadian known best by his online handle, Billboard Chris. Clementine encountered Chris on one of his sidewalk appearances
5:42 Jordan B. Peterson? at universities across the U.S. and Canada, specifically this time at UCLA. She told him her story, which went viral, not least as a consequence of her age when the events recounted occurred. It was in consequence of this encounter and some later research that I invited her to my studio as a guest. Puberty blockers at 12, hormonal transformation, that's testosterone, at 13, and a double mastectomy, camouflaged terminologically as "top surgery", that evil phrase, at 14. It's a terrible story, with, at the moment,
6:27 Jordan B. Peterson? a thankfully happy ending.
6:30 Jordan B. Peterson? On with the show. So, thank you for coming to Scottsdale today, Clementine. I know that this is likely to be a difficult conversation. And so, we'll try to not make it any more painful than absolutely necessary. I think we should probably start just by you telling people who you are and why you're here, what you're up to and why you're here, okay?
6:55 Speaker 01 My name's Clementine. I'm a 22-year-old college student. I don't really consider myself a super-political person. I just, seeing news about topics like this and other detransitioners come out and tell their stories, I just felt like I had to say something, considering the details of my particular story. I felt like I couldn't just watch this unfold and not participate in the conversation. So, I really just want to spread awareness about the reality of child transition and what actually happens to people after they decide to detransition.
7:26 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, now, you're involved in a notorious, I would say, a notorious lawsuit. Not that notorious means unnecessary or bad, but it means well-publicized and likely impactful, one way or another. And as far, I'm going to name the people who are involved, and you tell me if that's correct, right? So, one of the physicians involved was Dr. Johanna, Johanna?
7:52 Speaker 01 Joanna.
7:53 Jordan B. Peterson? Joanna. Dr. Joanna Olson Kennedy. And she's at the Center for Trans Youth and Human Development at the Children's Hospital in LA.
8:02 Speaker 01 Yes.
8:02 Jordan B. Peterson? Correct? Okay. And she's also president-elect of US Path, which is an advocacy group, I suppose, or a hypothetically scientific consultation group focused on transgender issues. Another defendant is Dr. Scott Mosser at St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco.
8:26 Speaker 01 Yes.
8:26 Jordan B. Peterson? And has that covered the territory?
8:28 Speaker 01 Also, my therapist, Susan Landon, as well.
8:30 Jordan B. Peterson? Susan Landon, and she was a psychotherapist?
8:33 Speaker 01 Yes. I was referred to her by Dr. Olson.
8:36 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, you were referred by Dr. Olson. And what's Susan Landon's professional designation?
8:42 Speaker 01 I believe she's just a family and general therapist, but she works specifically with trans youth.
8:47 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, okay. So, well, let's go through these people one at a time. I'm very interested, I'm interested in the, I'm really interested with you, I think, in focusing on...
8:59 Jordan B. Peterson? The personal and clinical elements of your case. And we can get to the legal and social and political implications later. You said already that you were not... Your focus, you don't regard yourself as involved politically particularly. Okay, that's fine. And I don't, I don't really think that this is fundamentally a political issue.
9:20 Speaker 01 I don't think so at all.
9:20 Jordan B. Peterson? You don't think so at all? Okay, so, let's start at the beginning. So, what procedures did you undergo and how old were you? Let's start with that.
9:30 Speaker 01 When I was 12 years old, I had a puberty blocker implant placed in my left arm. And when I was 13 years old, I was put on testosterone, which I continued until about earlier this year. But the last couple of years of being on testosterone, I was kind of on and off. And then when I was about 14 years old, I had a double mastectomy.
9:48 Jordan B. Peterson? All right, so let's go back before you were 12. Obviously, there's a reason that you were put on puberty blockers at 12.
9:57 Speaker 01 Right.
9:59 Jordan B. Peterson? How did you come to be put on them? So I guess that means how did you come in contact with Dr. Joanna Olson Kennedy? How did you come in contact with this therapist, Susan Landon? And, and why? So, and so you can go back as early as you want, detailing out your childhood and early adolescence. Tell us what brought you to the physicians and the counselor, or the psychologist counselor first.
10:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, so just to give like enough context. When I was about six years old, I was sexually abused. And that was something I had never even dealt with or talked about until much, much later on. So by the time that I was approaching puberty, around 11 years old, I think I started going through puberty. I started just feeling terrible, terrible anxiety about my body and about the idea of becoming a woman. And I felt really, really isolated from my female peers because I had really a different perspective on puberty and what it meant to be a woman because of what happened to me when I was really young.
11:01 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, can you, can you?
11:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
11:03 Jordan B. Peterson? Can you detail to the degree that you're willing to or capable of what happened to you when you were six?
11:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, so I was sexually abused by an older classmate. He was about four years older than me. And it went on for about a year. So it was pretty intense. And I just, in my brain, I just sort of processed it as something I didn't need to think about. So I never really dealt with that until later.
11:27 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, can you...
11:30 Jordan B. Peterson? That's a typical response for a child, but it isn't exactly so much as that you might say that you don't need to think about it. It's really that you can't.
11:40 Speaker 01 Exactly.
11:40 Jordan B. Peterson? Right? I mean, part of what happens to kids if they're hurt, and this is worse the younger they are, let's say, is that they don't have any framework of reference or any philosophical tools to understand what happened, and certainly not why. They don't understand the motivation of the perpetrator, they don't understand their own vulnerability, they don't understand the failures of the systems that were designed to protect them, they don't have anybody to talk to, and so there's actually no way of processing that. It's not only a matter of, like, whatever avoidance there might have been on your part, it's that it's just, it's not really possible.
12:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:21 Jordan B. Peterson? What details of the abuse are you willing to share? And now, there's a reason I'm asking you that, is because I want to know, as much as you can, tell me, I want to know how severe what happened to you was, how long it lasted, and the reason I want to know that is because I want to understand why it was that you became apprehensive when puberty hit. Because you can tell as much of the story as necessary to explain your anxiety as far as you're concerned.
12:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, so just to put it bluntly, I was raped multiple times, so when I was coming to 11, 12, and I started learning about sex ed and figuring out what sex was, I sort of started to unpack what had happened to me, and that was fully sort of when I was able to understand what actually happened.
13:08 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, okay, so you know, there were early psychoanalytic theories about anorexia, for example, and one of the theories, and I'm not vouching for the validity of this theory, but it's an interesting approach, and I think sometimes it's valid, is that some of the impetus for anorexia for some women, for some girls, particularly those who were sexually abused, was the attempt to forestall puberty.
13:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:37 Jordan B. Peterson? And because of apprehension around the emergence of sexual capability, let's say, and also the possibility of sexual predation, and you can imagine just generally that...
13:51 Jordan B. Peterson? It is perfectly reasonable for young women to be apprehensive about puberty, because new dangers emerge. Now, there's actually a biological response to that, you know, so I don't know if your therapists told you this, or your physicians, but it's necessary to know. So, boys and girls under the age of puberty don't differ much in their proclivity for negative emotion, anxiety and depression. Okay, at puberty, that changes. And this is cross-culturally stable, and it's mostly biological. And we know that, because the differences are most pronounced in gender equal societies. Right, okay.
14:34 Jordan B. Peterson? Women become more anxious and depressed than men, more sensitive to negative emotion, at puberty, and that never goes away. And so then you might ask, "Why?" Well, sexual vulnerability makes the world a dangerous place for women. Then you might say, "Well, women also have to take care of infants, so being threat sensitive is reasonable, because they can... they're gonna be more sensitive to dangers to their baby, but they also become sexually vulnerable, right? And their boys and men become physically more... much more powerful than women at that point, too. So, it appears as though what nature does to address that imbalance is increase the negative emotion that women feel. That happens at puberty, okay?
15:19 Jordan B. Peterson? But there's one more twist to that. And I'd like to know if any of this was explained to you, because it should have been. The typical pattern that negative emotion takes in young women is bodily concern. And it's partly because women are evaluated, for better or worse, in consequence of their physical appearance. And so, it's very commonly the case that if a woman is anxious and depressed, is experiencing high levels of negative emotion, that expresses itself as hyper-concern about bodily appearance. Right. Now, when you were brought, when you were little, and maybe you don't remember even, but how much of that was explained to you?
16:03 Jordan B. Peterson? None of that was explained. Okay, so, so one of the things I'd like to point out to everyone watching is, there's no excuse for not explaining this. If you're a physician who's trained well enough to dare to meddle in someone's gender identity, and if you're a counselor who's counseling someone who hypothetically has gender dysphoria, especially someone female, then these are elementary facts. The first thing you do when you deal with someone who is anxious and depressed, when they're female and they're entering puberty, is to explain this. It's psychology, I wouldn't call it 101. It's developmental psychology 101. And so that's minimum necessary information.
16:45 Jordan B. Peterson? Now, there's a reason that that should be explained to you, you know. So it's very frequently the case that people who are having psychological trouble, so excess anxiety and depression, let's say, they feel like they're the only people who are in that boat. So they feel isolated and alone and sort of singled out. And part of the reason you explain the prevalence of a given diagnosis even to someone is to say, "You're not alone. This isn't unique to you. In fact, it's quite common. These are the symptoms that are commonly associated with it. These are the reasons for the symptoms." And, well, in the case
17:22 Jordan B. Peterson? of the symptoms that you describe, the typical pattern is that even adolescents who are radically gender dysphoric adapt by the time they're 18. At least 80% of them. This has been known for, well, I'd say, four decades, five decades. It's been known a long time. It's been replicated many times. It's a very stable finding. So the reliable clinicians and physicians have concluded, especially before all of this got politicized, that if a child is severely gender dysphoric, the best thing to do is nothing until they're 18. Most of them are, what would you say, reconciled to their fate by that point. And
18:06 Jordan B. Peterson? that's also not that atypical, because... Puberty throws a monkey wrench into everyone's works.
18:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:12 Jordan B. Peterson? Now, you were at particular risk for that, and you said why. Now, when you went and saw Olson Kennedy and the counselor, what, tell me her name again.
18:24 Speaker 01 Susan Landon.
18:25 Jordan B. Peterson? Susan Landon, right. Did you tell them that, about the abuse?
18:30 Speaker 01 I did not, but they didn't ask.
18:32 Jordan B. Peterson? So they didn't know about that?
18:33 Speaker 01 Right.
18:33 Jordan B. Peterson? But they didn't ask. So what kind of history did they take from you?
18:37 Speaker 01 We had very brief discussions about my childhood, and I expressed that I'd always felt sort of uncomfortable with girls, and that I had mostly male friends. And I talked about my discomfort with the idea of growing into be a grown woman. That was sort of the very surface level conversations we had. And I was diagnosed with gender dysphoria on our first meeting, but I had only been...
18:58 Jordan B. Peterson? Diagnosed by who?
19:00 Speaker 01 Uh, Olson Kennedy.
19:01 Jordan B. Peterson? How long was the diagnostic meeting, approximately?
19:05 Speaker 01 Uh, it was around 30 minutes to an hour. It was pretty short, and she spoke with my parents as well. But by the time I was diagnosed, I had only been living as trans for about three months, but the diagnostic criteria is actually six months.
19:18 Jordan B. Peterson? So with Olson Kennedy, how many times did you see her? Like, in, how many times did you have the chance to have a clinical discussion with her of some length?
19:29 Speaker 01 We had multiple clinical discussions. I don't actually know how many times I saw her, but all the talk about gender was never beyond social setting. It was never about how I was feeling. It was more about how I wanted to be perceived.
19:44 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, now you said when you first went and saw her, and then, how long after you saw her? Like, what was the sequence of events that led you to Landon?
19:56 Speaker 01 Right, I believe it was pretty shortly after, maybe a month or so, I started seeing Landon, because she had referred me to her. And we had sort of similar discussions, and she kept affirming the idea that I was somehow inherently male, and that was the root of my discomfort.
20:12 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, well, there's been a variety... See, that's a tricky issue, eh? Because in Canada, for example, and I'm familiar with this because I'm Canadian, although it's the same in many places in the United States.
20:29 Jordan B. Peterson? The standard of care is gender affirmation. The legal standard of care, the professional standard of care, which is appalling. It's appalling. And what that means is that,
20:42 Jordan B. Peterson? I believe it's actually a felony in Canada for a psychologist or a physician, or anyone else for that matter, anyone operating in a professional capacity, to question, let's say, your feelings. Now, the problem with that is,
20:58 Jordan B. Peterson? well, you know what the problem is, but the problem is, what if you're confused?
21:03 Speaker 01 Right.
21:04 Jordan B. Peterson? Now, virtually every adolescent is confused. So then the question is, how, if you come to me, and I'm a physician or a therapist, and you, you said you'd been living as trans, and so there's evidence already that you decided to, that you decided you were in the wrong body, so to speak, you're acting that out in some ways. I have to step damn carefully not to actually do something illegal or sufficiently unprofessional, so to speak, that my license could be at risk. So we're increasingly in a situation where the probability that someone like you at 12 would be told the truth is zero. And this is independent of
21:46 Jordan B. Peterson? the actual, let's say, professional knowledge of the physician or counselor. So, for example, we might ask, "Why you weren't given this elementary information that I described?" I think that should have just happened baseline, because that has nothing to do with your feelings. But then, it is the case that the physicians and the therapist would have to tread on very thin ice indeed to ask you any questions of any sort. So, I'm not trying to excuse this, I'm, I'm trying to outline for people who are listening, and you, why such things might happen.
22:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:22 Jordan B. Peterson? Now, with Olson Kennedy, there's some evidence that she's a fairly avid advocate of...
22:29 Jordan B. Peterson? The gender-affirming process. And so that's a slightly different situation. Okay, so tell me, tell me exactly what you think the discussions consisted of with Olson Kennedy and then also with the therapist.
22:44 Speaker 01 It was very, very surface level and it was all about what I wanted in the future, which for me at the time was very difficult to figure out. And obviously, I just, kind of my dream was I wanted to just be totally dissociated from my body, which is not really a healthy mindset at all. But I didn't really, I wasn't 100% certain if I was like truly male, if that was the truth. But they kept affirming that my discomfort with my body was related to the fact that I was supposed to be born male. And that because I fit in better with males at school or things like that, that that was somehow also evidence to that.
23:23 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, okay, first of all, that's not evidence, right? I mean, some boys, it's a minority, as it is with girls, but a minority of boys are more comfortable associating with girls, and that also might be situation-dependent. And it's, I think, even more common that girls are more comfortable associating with boys. But that in itself is absolutely 100% no determinant marker of which gender you are.
23:47 Speaker 01 No.
23:47 Jordan B. Peterson? So, I mean, otherwise, it would be impossible for boys and girls to have cross-sex friendships without their biological identity being cast into question.
24:00 Speaker 01 Right.
24:01 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so you didn't talk much about the past. Now, all right, you said that you'd been living transgender for a few months before you went and saw Olson Kennedy.
24:10 Speaker 01 Yes.
24:11 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so what did that mean? What did that mean? What were you doing?
24:14 Speaker 01 I had spoken to my guidance counselor about my feelings about my body, and I had suggested that I might be transgender to her, but I had also said that I might be lesbian or a bisexual or things like that. We just had a lot of like very open-ended conversations.
24:30 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay.
24:30 Speaker 01 But at a certain point, she sort of latched on to the idea that I might be transgender. And after that meeting, she called my parents and told them, and they're the ones who took me to Olson Kennedy. However, pretty shortly after that conversation with my parents, it was actually my guidance counselor who told my entire school that I was a boy and that they were to only use male pronouns for me, and that all the teachers had to call me by a different name. And at the time, it kind of... Felt nice in a way that I didn't have to really do any of it myself, but it also really removed any accountability on my end because I had really no actual control over the decision and I didn't have to have those conversations face to face with my parents or my peers as well.
25:14 Jordan B. Peterson? So it was taken out of your hands?
25:15 Speaker 01 Essentially.
25:16 Jordan B. Peterson? But you also implied in the run up to that statement that part of your motivation was to have it taken out of your hands because it wasn't something that you particularly wanted to deal with.
25:27 Speaker 01 No, and I also, when I was living as trans at that point, before I had gone through with any medicalization, I had just cut my hair short and was wearing baggy clothes, which I was also doing because my body was changing.
25:40 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, right, right. But people, and what were people calling you at that point?
25:44 Speaker 01 People were calling me Kai at the time.
25:46 Jordan B. Peterson? Kai, and the school was informed that you were now male?
25:50 Speaker 01 Yes.
25:51 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, and you, what you said, you correct me if I get any of this wrong because I want to get it right while I'm talking to you. You said that was a relief to you fundamentally?
26:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
26:03 Jordan B. Peterson? Was it only a relief?
26:04 Speaker 01 No, it was definitely mixed emotions because also I was a bit overwhelmed at the same time because everything happened so fast. I mean, it was just like three months at that time.
26:15 Jordan B. Peterson? So what, how did that change your status at school? First of all, before that, before that, before you started talking to the guidance counselor and so forth, how would you describe your social status, let's say, and at school?
26:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, at school I was, I wouldn't call myself popular, but I had, I had friends and people liked me. I was fairly well liked. I was definitely, as I hit puberty, I was getting more awkward and definitely more reserved and shy.
26:47 Speaker 01 Going through puberty definitely triggered something in me that was kind of noticeable from other people around me.
26:52 Jordan B. Peterson? Right.
26:53 Speaker 01 And when I originally came out as transgender, I lost a ton of friends sort of immediately. But after a year or so, I started getting way more popular than I had ever been while living as female and
27:07 Jordan B. Peterson? Why?
27:07 Speaker 01 I think it was because of The sort of initial confidence boost that I had, but also I definitely felt more comfortable asserting myself in ways that are traditionally masculine, that I was sort of reserved from before. Definitely just because I was insecure and shy. I don't think that my trans identity benefited me in any way. But I did notice that people started to respect me more.
27:34 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so let me take that apart a little bit, because you could imagine. When did you start taking testosterone?
27:41 Speaker 01 I started taking testosterone at 13.
27:43 Jordan B. Peterson? What was the effect of you? What was the effect on you of the drug?
27:48 Speaker 01 Pretty quickly, my voice started to deepen a bit, and I started to grow facial hair. My stature changed. I got a bit more confident, and I was very restless and angry all the time. As my dose increased, I started having very, very negative side effects that eventually sort of diverged into full-blown psychosis. But at the time that I was 13, that wasn't happening yet.
28:12 Jordan B. Peterson? Do you think that the changes that testosterone induced had anything to do with your shift in social status?
28:20 Speaker 01 Absolutely.
28:21 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, how?
28:22 Speaker 01 I think once I started to physically conform to the male identity, it was easier for people to see me that way, which also definitely made me feel better in a short-term sense. But it didn't actually resolve any of the mental problems I was experiencing.
28:36 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, when did you, or did you ever start to discuss what had happened to you when you were six?
28:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, I started to discuss that around 17 with a different therapist.
28:46 Jordan B. Peterson? Oh, so it was quite a while after this?
28:47 Speaker 01 It was a while, yeah.
28:50 Jordan B. Peterson? Why the lag? And then why did you decide to delve into it?
28:54 Speaker 01 Well, I had sort of assumed that my transition would fix all of those issues, because that's sort of what I was told, is that my body issues would resolve and that, once I started fitting in better at school, I'd feel less shy. That did sort of happen, but I also got more reckless and more depressed and more anxious and I could hardly sleep and things like that were just happening. And it got so bad, by the time I was 17, I could hardly focus in school. I was up all night, every single night. My insomnia had become psychosis.
29:28 Jordan B. Peterson? What were those symptoms?
29:30 Speaker 01 I was having full-blown hallucinations.
29:32 Jordan B. Peterson? Auditory or visual?
29:33 Speaker 01 Visual and auditory, mostly auditory. It was like hearing voices and whispers and shouting from the other room.
29:40 Jordan B. Peterson? What sort of things were the whispers saying?
29:43 Speaker 01 It was a lot of, this is all in my therapist notes, but it was a lot of stuff about hurting other people and specifically men, which was something I had actually talked to Landon about and she attributed to my trans identity.
29:58 Jordan B. Peterson? Do you have an alternative attribution?
30:00 Speaker 01 I think that it was because of the sexual abuse.
30:03 Jordan B. Peterson? Well, that would be the obvious.
30:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
30:05 Jordan B. Peterson? Right. Do you remember, as I said before we started the interview, you don't have to answer any of these questions, right? So, do you remember what the voices were telling you?
30:17 Speaker 01 Certain things would be if I had positive relationships with people, I would always be told to hurt those people or say certain things. In class, it would always be like, "You have to get out of here, you have to run," or like things like that, lots of whispering, so it would overlap at times. But it was always trying to get me to do things that were very impulsive. And sometimes I would do those things and I would act very impulsively or out of control or really high-risk behaviors I was doing.
30:44 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, and that was all happening around 17?
30:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, around 16, 17.
30:48 Jordan B. Peterson? And has that resolved completely?
30:51 Speaker 01 Completely.
30:52 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, and how come? Why did it resolve?
30:55 Speaker 01 I went through DBT therapy and that sort of quieted most of my psychosis. However, I was still having some of it until...
31:02 Jordan B. Peterson? DBT being?
31:03 Speaker 01 Dialectural behavioral therapy. And after completing that, I was still having some of those symptoms, but once I was fully detoxed off the testosterone, I stopped having hallucinations.
31:14 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so there is some benefit to the psychological treatment. If you had to guess, or maybe you know, was the primary benefit with regard to the psychosis symptoms a consequence of the psychological treatment or the cessation of testosterone?
31:31 Speaker 01 I would say it was definitely both, but I would say the cessation of the testosterone stopped the psychosis.
31:37 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so if I've got this right, you didn't discuss the sexual abuse with Olson Kennedy or Landon?
31:45 Speaker 01 No.
31:45 Jordan B. Peterson? And then that was forestalled until you were 17. And the reason you didn't discuss it is because you thought that you had an alternative route. Had you ever revealed anything about the sexual abuse to your parents?
31:57 Speaker 01 No.
31:58 Jordan B. Peterson? So this was all happening in secret.
32:00 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
32:00 Jordan B. Peterson? Did the teachers know?
32:04 Jordan B. Peterson? So, do you know why you didn't, why you weren't able to or didn't
32:11 Jordan B. Peterson? discuss what had happened with your parents?
32:15 Speaker 01 I think the main reason was because I was assaulted by somebody who was also a child at the time. They were much older, but they were still a child at the time. So I think in my head, I sort of had the narrative of like, if an adult hurts you, tell another adult. But I wasn't really considering that a child's actions could be that inappropriate where I'd have to tell somebody. But then, by the time I had sort of realized what had happened, I was so ashamed and I felt like there was no way out of it or no way to tell anybody. So I just figured I could resolve it in other ways, like transitioning.
32:49 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, well, I'm not, look, I'm also not suggesting at all that,
32:56 Jordan B. Peterson? you know, there was a more appropriate route to dealing with this. It's very, very complicated. And what you just said, well, there's moral quandaries and you pointed them out. When is it appropriate to go to an authority? You said you were ambivalent about that. And then you had other reasons for not.
33:13 Jordan B. Peterson? For not revealing it. And it's a very complicated thing to reveal.
33:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
33:18 Jordan B. Peterson? Like, how do you talk about it?
33:19 Speaker 01 It's very, it still kind of eludes me in how I talk about it. Like, I just sort of got desensitized to talking about it at a certain point, which weirdly helped, but the first time, I could barely even get the words out.
33:33 Jordan B. Peterson? Were you guilty about it?
33:34 Speaker 01 I felt very guilty.
33:36 Jordan B. Peterson? Why?
33:36 Speaker 01 Especially after all of the transition and all of the things that I had done to just avoid dealing with this. There was a lot of shame in finally coming out and saying the reason.
33:48 Jordan B. Peterson? Why were you guilty, do you think?
33:50 Speaker 01 I don't know.
33:53 Jordan B. Peterson? Well, you know, if you're confused, if you're deeply confused about something, part of what confusion is, is the experience of a very large number of emotions.
34:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
34:03 Jordan B. Peterson? Right? Because part of the way you resolve the confusion is to experience a, like, a panoply of emotions, to see which ones fit. So that could be shame, anger, guilt, rage, pain, anxiety. What else? Curiosity, excitement, all of those. That's all part of being, you know, deeply confused. And, well, you had reason to be confused. Okay, so you had to keep this to yourself. And it started to happen to you when you were very young. And so...
34:40 Jordan B. Peterson? Now, I asked you if you had discussed this with your physician or your therapist, and you said, "No, not till you were 17." And so then, but you also mentioned that the conversations that you had with the therapist and the physician were fundamentally centered on what you wanted in the future. Well, how much investigation into your history? Took place.
35:05 Speaker 01 Very little, because the second we got into my history, I mean, it just came crumbling down. Like even in my surgical note for my double mastectomy, in my referral, it says that I had held a male identity since childhood, which is just not true. I was a super girly child. I did choir and theater. I would play dress up. I collected dolls. Like, I just had no sign of this until puberty. Besides just physical discomfort with my body and just feeling disconnected from girls, there was really no sign of prior gender dysphoria.
35:36 Jordan B. Peterson? Discomfort with your body and feeling disconnected with girls, from girls, that's called puberty.
35:41 Speaker 01 Right, exactly.
35:41 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, right. Now, it might have been, as we already discussed, it might have been exaggerated in your case, likely exaggerated in your case, at least the discomfort and the confusion, and perhaps some resistance to the process. I mean, that's, that seems like, in some ways, self-evident, given that what you just said. But very little of that, very little of what you just described deviates from what's strictly normative and expected.
36:06 Speaker 01 Right.
36:06 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, and so you said, you also didn't provide a history that indicated that prolonged dysphoria that, in principle, is associated with being born in the wrong body.
36:21 Speaker 01 Right.
36:21 Jordan B. Peterson? It's a very strange conceptualization, but, you know, one that, you can imagine these sorts of things being more justifiable in the case of someone who has that kind of lengthy history. But it wasn't the case with you.
36:35 Speaker 01 No, they almost, it seemed like they didn't really want to talk about my childhood or as if my childhood was totally irrelevant to what was happening now. And it was just something that I hadn't seen before or my parents hadn't seen before, because there really were no signs when I was a child.
36:51 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, now, let's talk about your parents a little bit.
36:55 Speaker 01 Sure.
36:55 Jordan B. Peterson? So now, you're dressing as a boy at school, or at least dressing in, were you dressing as a boy? How were you dressing?
37:04 Speaker 01 I was just wearing baggy clothes. I wasn't really dressing like a boy. It was just big shirts and big pants.
37:10 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, okay, right. Well, that's also not uncommon, early pubescent female behavior.
37:18 Speaker 01 Right.
37:19 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, right, okay. And you talked to a guidance counselor at school, and the guidance counselor, you said...
37:29 Jordan B. Peterson? Focused in on
37:32 Jordan B. Peterson? gender dysphoria and your hypothetical identity as a boy as a resolution to your confusion.
37:40 Speaker 01 Yes.
37:41 Jordan B. Peterson? And then it was taken out of your hands by, in some ways, by the turns of events that emerged in consequence.
37:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:48 Jordan B. Peterson? The announcement of your pronouns, the... Now, then you said you lost a variety of friends.
37:54 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
37:55 Jordan B. Peterson? Why?
37:56 Speaker 01 I think a lot of people were sort of uncomfortable with what was happening. And I also had people at the time point out how out of character this was, or how like, I had never behaved typically masculine before, or I hadn't really expressed interest in masculine things and things like that. People had brought it up to me and were very aware of how out of character it was.
38:17 Jordan B. Peterson? Right. So a lot of the people that had been associating with you didn't know what the hell was going on.
38:21 Speaker 01 Right.
38:22 Jordan B. Peterson? And they didn't know what to do.
38:23 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:23 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, well, that's enough to cause collapse of friendship right there, because well, one of the characteristics of friendships is that you know the person and you know what to do. Okay, so then you had some period of time, I presume after that, where your social status was ambivalent.
38:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:41 Jordan B. Peterson? And then it switched in a more positive direction.
38:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
38:45 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, well, see, one of the complicating factors, of course, too, is that once you start to take testosterone, thing about testosterone is that it can quell anxiety and depression as a pharmacological agent. Right? So that makes that makes differential diagnosis of its effects very complex, because you could say, well, the reason that you're not as depressed and anxious as you were is because you've finally found your true identity.
39:11 Speaker 01 Right.
39:11 Jordan B. Peterson? Or you could just point out that it's a side effect of testosterone.
39:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:15 Jordan B. Peterson? Right. And it's very difficult to separate those.
39:17 Speaker 01 Yeah. For example, I was crying all the time before the testosterone, and then after I stopped crying, and I just wouldn't have these fits of crying. And in my mind, I was like, oh, that means it's working. I'm getting better.
39:29 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, right.
39:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:30 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, right. Okay, so the sequence is 12 years old, 11, when do you start?
39:38 Jordan B. Peterson? Dressing in this ambivalent fashion and your name changes, is that 11?
39:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, or 12.
39:44 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, but it's also a 12 that you put on puberty blockers?
39:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
39:47 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so describe the route to puberty blockers and the duration it took from first contact with the physician to to diagnosis and prescription.
40:01 Speaker 01 It was about three months between coming out as trans and then being seen by Dr. Olsen and Dr. Olsen recommended puberty blockers immediately, but it took a few months for her to convince my parents to agree to it.
40:17 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, what do you mean by immediately?
40:20 Speaker 01 She immediately asserted that I was definitely trans and that puberty blockers would be the right path.
40:25 Jordan B. Peterson? And immediately is the first session?
40:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, after the first time we had spoken for about 30 minutes.
40:31 Jordan B. Peterson? And that's 30 to 60 minutes?
40:32 Speaker 01 Yes.
40:34 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, now it takes some time to convince your parents. Okay, do you have siblings?
40:40 Speaker 01 I do, I have a brother.
40:41 Jordan B. Peterson? Older or younger?
40:42 Speaker 01 Older.
40:43 Jordan B. Peterson? Older, okay. I'm just trying to situate you in the family. Okay, so now your parents, why do your parents take you to Olson Kennedy?
40:52 Speaker 01 My parents had definitely noticed that around puberty I got very reserved and shy and was acting sort of different and they definitely noticed the signs of depression. It wasn't really severe, but they noticed that it was happening and around that first meeting Olsen asserted that I would be at very high risk for suicide.
41:10 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, okay.
41:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, and that immediately got them terrified for what would happen to me.
41:15 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so would you rather have a live trans kid or a dead kid?
41:20 Speaker 01 Those words, exactly.
41:21 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, yeah, okay, so why did they take you to Olson Kennedy though, rather than to someone who specialized, let's say, in depression and anxiety? Was that, I'll just let you answer that first.
41:32 Speaker 01 Sure, yeah, I mean, my guidance counselor had been the one to have this phone call with them, so I don't actually know.
41:38 Jordan B. Peterson? With the parent, with your parents?
41:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, I never got to tell my parents, but...
41:42 Jordan B. Peterson? You said at school that you'd already started, you'd had conversations with the guidance counselor and you'd already been set on this gender transition path.
41:51 Speaker 01 Right.
41:51 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so now your parents know you're depressed and anxious and that it's manifesting itself in this transition path. Then Olson Kennedy becomes a logical person to go see.
42:01 Speaker 01 Right.
42:02 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so she tells your parents... On the initial encounter that puberty blockers, that you're definitely a male and that puberty blockers are the appropriate course of action.
42:14 Speaker 01 Yes.
42:14 Jordan B. Peterson? And that that reduces suicide risk.
42:16 Speaker 01 She also asserted that that was basically the only treatment available.
42:20 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, there is no evidence of that suicide risk. That is a lie and it's a pathological and manipulative lie. It's, I don't think that I've run across any deeper lie told by psychological counselors and medical professionals than that gender-affirming care is the only alternative to suicide, the safest alternative to suicide for kids who have gender dysphoria. I don't think there's a shred of evidence anywhere in the clinical literature, no matter how you look at it, to support that conclusion. Right, so, okay, so now your parents are in a bind.
43:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:00 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so what's happening with them? You said it takes a few months. Tell me what happens.
43:05 Speaker 01 My parents were very reluctant originally and they were constantly like, are you, like, I don't believe this. You have never expressed this before. And Olsen would have conversations with me, or conversations with them where I wasn't there, or conversations with me separately and then she'd talk to my parents. I don't know exactly what was said, but I know it was just asserting the same rhetoric that I was at very high risk for suicide, that my depression was going to get worse if they didn't act on this now. And it was also, there was a lot of social pressure put on me because Olsen kept bringing up keeping up with male peers and keeping up with people in my class.
43:43 Jordan B. Peterson? Time is of the essence.
43:44 Speaker 01 Right, as if there was some need to act as quick as possible.
43:48 Jordan B. Peterson? How many times do you suppose you and your family were instructed by Olson Kennedy, let's say, that?
43:58 Jordan B. Peterson? There was an ever-present risk of suicide, that that was real and immediate, and that this was the appropriate treatment. How many times do you suppose that was discussed? That was something that was probably expressed to my parents every time my parents spoke to her. Got any estimate of a numeric? Probably a dozen. Okay. And you said as well that that was that was the only treatment pathway? That was the only treatment pathway. It was what she would assert. You could imagine two models of unhappiness, right, that would be relevant in your case. One model would be
44:35 Jordan B. Peterson? your gender dysphoric because your identity is reversed, inverted, and the depression and anxiety are a consequence of that. Yeah. Okay, there's a problem with that assumption. The problem is, is that there's almost no, let's say psychiatric condition that isn't primarily depression and anxiety. Right. Right, because well, people don't go to consult with a physician or a psychiatrist or a psychologist unless they're miserable and afraid and unhappy. Because why would they? Narcissists, for example, very rarely go to see psychologists because they're not particularly distressed by their condition. Same with criminals. Okay, so the logical inference pathway
45:18 Jordan B. Peterson? is that the primary disorder is depression and anxiety. And then there may be secondary manifestations, but you have to be damn sure that the secondary manifestations are real before you make them before you make the depression and anxiety secondary to that. So one alternative treatment, in principle, would have been treatment for depression and anxiety, directly. And then to see if the gender dysphoria resolves, let's say, on its own. I'm not saying that would have been the only alternative, but it is the appropriate default alternative, especially when the alternatives are puberty blockers, which aren't trivial, hormonal transformation,
46:03 Jordan B. Peterson? which is a major medical and psychological intervention, to say nothing of surgery. Right, because the other default... Position that psychiatrists, etc., physicians, surgeons should adopt is, "Don't do anything harmful and permanent."
46:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:22 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, okay. Okay, so now your parents are told that you're definitely a boy,
46:29 Jordan B. Peterson? despite the fact that you've been feminine your whole life, and that if they don't do something,
46:39 Jordan B. Peterson? all hell might break loose.
46:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:41 Jordan B. Peterson? And you're told, "You better get at it."
46:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:44 Jordan B. Peterson? And that there's no alternative treatment. Yeah, you're certain of this, eh? That this is how it played out?
46:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:51 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay. Okay, now I'll leave it at that. Okay, so now your parents,
46:58 Jordan B. Peterson? how do they come to a decision? And what happens in your household? Well, that's occurring. There, you implied that they, there was a fair bit of back and forth
47:06 Speaker 01 Definitely.
47:07 Jordan B. Peterson? between you and your parents.
47:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, we didn't really fight too much. It was just, they were very distressed about it. And they didn't, they didn't want to agree, but they also felt kind of backed into a corner, and they sort of felt a bit...
47:21 Jordan B. Peterson? The purpose of that threat is to back them into a corner.
47:25 Speaker 01 Exactly.
47:25 Jordan B. Peterson? That is the purpose of that threat.
47:27 Speaker 01 Right.
47:28 Jordan B. Peterson? Because there's no clinical evidence for its validity. Right. First of all, even the medical organizations that purport to address the long-term viability of gender-affirming treatment, state that partly because of prejudice against gender dysphoric people. There are no long-term studies. Well, you can't have it both ways.
47:56 Speaker 01 Exactly.
47:56 Jordan B. Peterson? There's either no long-term studies, or you don't know what the suicide risk is. Plus, there's an additional issue. People who are depressed and anxious are at higher risk for suicide. That doesn't mean that they're at higher risk for suicide because they're gender dysphoric. Those are very separate issues.
48:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:13 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so, okay. So now your parents... They've been delivered a warning by a medic... What's the therapist doing at this time?
48:22 Speaker 01 She's sort of just reaffirming all my beliefs. And every problem I had was attributed to the fact that I was somehow inherently born in the wrong body and that I was intrinsically male and I should have been born in a different body. And that's why I feel so anxious. And that's why I hate school. And that's why I can't focus. And all my problems were attributed to my gender dysphoria. Yeah.
48:46 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so that's convenient for you in the short term.
48:49 Speaker 01 Right, in my mind, I'm thinking, oh, great. This is treatable. I found the problem. I found what's wrong with me.
48:56 Jordan B. Peterson? Did you... Okay, this is a hard question. Not that the other ones haven't been.
49:01 Jordan B. Peterson? When you were thinking your private thoughts at this point, when you were listening to the therapists and the physicians, what did you believe? What did you doubt?
49:10 Speaker 01 I don't think I actually doubted much. I mean, I, in my mind, truly believed that this might be the answer and...
49:20 Jordan B. Peterson? Hoped or believed?
49:21 Speaker 01 I think I hoped. And I was waiting to see if it would resolve. And it didn't eventually. But I was also kind of naively trusting them and assuming that this was right, especially because people around me...
49:35 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, it's hard to tell how much of that's naive. The thing about being an adolescent is that... You know how people are... They're always on the cases of... On a teenager's case to not be so susceptible to peer pressure. It's actually... Being susceptible to peer pressure is developmentally appropriate for a teenager. So imagine when you're a child, you're susceptible to the influence of your parents. Okay, well, when you're a teenager, you're not ready to be on your own. Who should you be susceptible to? Well, obviously, your peers. Why? Well, they're going to be your community. So if you're a normal teenager, what your peers think matters.
50:19 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so now you're already in a milieu at school where you've got your pronouns, you've got your male identity. Plus, there are figures of authority who are driving that home. I don't think that it's... I don't think that the fact that you are susceptible to that is indicative of what I would describe as naivety. It's what you'd expect. The other thing that's useful to know is that imagine that two things determine how you respond in a situation. One might be your personality, your temperament, even your knowledge. The other might be the demands, the social demands of the situation.
50:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
50:58 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, then you might ask, for the typical person, which is the greater influence? And the answer is clearly the social influence.
51:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:06 Jordan B. Peterson? That's what it means to be social. So here's an example. People decide when they're not hungry by noticing when they've eaten the same amount of food on the same sized plates as everyone else at the table. So even something as biological as hunger and its satiety is actually mediated by social observation. Well, why? Well, you don't want to be the person who habitually eats all the food. Right? You're not going to make yourself popular, especially when food is scarce. People are very sensitive to social pressure, pressure, norms. That's appropriate.
51:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:43 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so now, your situation is you're confused. Well, puberty does that, but you had additional reason. And now you've been delivered an identity.
51:54 Jordan B. Peterson? And it's in your interest for, in a variety of ways, to accept that because it actually solves a complex problem in principle, which is what the hell you're supposed to do with your fear. And and then people are promising that it's going to work. Then you also have the situation where
52:13 Jordan B. Peterson? at least in potential, the testosterone is making you more confident.
52:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:16 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, so I don't think you should have necessarily expected yourself to sort that out. I am curious though, and it's worth thinking through. Like...
52:26 Jordan B. Peterson? You told me already that you had a conflict. You knew there was something in the past, or did you? How much did you know that this thing in the past hadn't been addressed?
52:34 Speaker 01 I knew that it had happened and I was very aware of what happened, but I didn't think it was also something that needed to be addressed until probably around 16.
52:44 Jordan B. Peterson? And you said you figured that out because these other things didn't work?
52:47 Speaker 01 Because I was still, I had gone through the surgery. I had been on testosterone. I was fitting in much better as a teenage boy than I had been as a teenage girl. And everything was worse. I was so much worse off and I was so much more suicidal.
53:03 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, and so that's, okay. So how did you come to the realization that it might have had something to do with the abuse?
53:09 Speaker 01 I didn't. I think I sort of just knew once I was looking at my life and looking at the way that I was acting and I couldn't function properly, to put it bluntly. I figured there was something still going on that I had.
53:23 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, well, the thing is too, you know, you're also getting older during all this period of time. And that means that, you know,
53:31 Jordan B. Peterson? as you age and mature and gather more wisdom and are less naive even, let's say, you take a different view of things that happened to you in your past.
53:42 Speaker 01 Right.
53:42 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so you can realize the significance, like, you're not, what the hell's a six-year-old gonna do about understanding sexual abuse?
53:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
53:50 Jordan B. Peterson? No, that's not gonna happen. So then at what point do you start even seeing that it was abuse?
53:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
53:55 Jordan B. Peterson? And then at what point do you start, well, delving into its effects? Maybe you could make a case that, you know, you weren't ready or able to do that until you were 17, especially given that you had
54:08 Jordan B. Peterson? an alternate hypothesis and strategy at hand. Okay, so things are getting worse and they got better, yes?
54:17 Speaker 01 Yes.
54:18 Jordan B. Peterson? And then they got worse?
54:19 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
54:20 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, now, 12 years old, you're on puberty blockers.
54:26 Jordan B. Peterson? And what were the consequence of the puberty blockers?
54:28 Speaker 01 The puberty blockers made me kind of lightheaded all the time. So it also sort of put a little more pressure on me to start testosterone, because I was sort of feeling the effects of having no estrogen or testosterone in my system. And I was getting hot flashes and just feeling kind of lightheaded. But otherwise, it just stopped any breast development, which was causing me distress at the time. But it also sort of deformed the breast development that I did have. So in a way, it sort of relieved my discomfort with my breasts. But it also made it a lot worse, because then the tissue was somewhat deformed.
55:04 Jordan B. Peterson? You know, one of the questions, looking at your history, is like, when did you pass threshold? I know that it's relatively common for people who start taking puberty blockers to proceed to the surgical route.
55:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
55:17 Jordan B. Peterson? And that begs the question of like, when do you make the fatal decision, so to speak? The big decision? And you might say, well, that's just before surgery. You might say it's just before testosterone. You might say it's just before puberty blockers. So as far as you're concerned, if you had to decide, when did you make the determining decision? At what point?
55:41 Speaker 01 The decision to have surgery?
55:43 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, the decision to, yeah, well, the decision to see this all the way through, let's say.
55:47 Speaker 01 I think it was around when I started testosterone. And I started, you know, noticing my voice dropping and noticing that people were starting to just respect me a little bit more now that I looked more physiologically male. Once that happened, and I was sort of fitting in socially as male, but then I was looking at my body and just seeing the disconnect. And then because of the puberty blockers, the deformities of my breast tissue was causing me so much discomfort. So it was really that, sort of immediately after I started testosterone at 13.
56:20 Jordan B. Peterson? So you're trapped between fish and fowl at that point.
56:22 Speaker 01 Right.
56:23 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, okay. And so.
56:27 Jordan B. Peterson? Tell me what, how you were evaluated before the surgery. You're 14. There's two things I want to know. How you were evaluated before the surgery? And then what you think of now about the fact that you were giving consent for that surgery? Well, or for the puberty blockers. Puberty blockers at 12, testosterone at 13, and then a double mastectomy at 14. Right? So no medical procedures are supposed to be administered without informed consent. And informed means you got all the information. And consent means you understand what the hell you're doing. Okay, so evaluation before the double mastectomy, what kind of evaluation did you get from the surgeons?
57:10 Speaker 01 Well, the two people who wrote my referral letters were Olsen and Landon. So I hardly had any extra psychological evaluation because they just wrote the letters because they'd already been seeing me and they didn't really ask me much additional questions. And then when I went in for surgery, I had already had everything scheduled. I was already cleared for surgery. So I traveled to San Francisco just because it was recommendation of Olsen, the specific doctor. And by the time I was there...
57:38 Jordan B. Peterson? Why the specific doctor?
57:39 Speaker 01 Because he doesn't have age limits or BMI requirements and...
57:43 Jordan B. Peterson? No age limits?
57:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:46 Jordan B. Peterson? And that's part of Olson Kennedy in principle, from what I understand, opposes, what does she call it? It's not blockade exactly.
57:55 Speaker 01 Gatekeeping?
57:56 Jordan B. Peterson? Gatekeeping!
57:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's the word they use.
57:58 Jordan B. Peterson? Right. And the, those who oppose gatekeeping assume that more harm is done the longer the delay.
58:05 Speaker 01 Yes.
58:06 Jordan B. Peterson? Right.
58:06 Speaker 01 Right. Which I wish I had been delayed because at 14, I was really, really impulsive and not thinking things through and...
58:14 Jordan B. Peterson? You know what that's called?
58:15 Speaker 01 Being 14.
58:16 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, that's exactly what that's called, yes.
58:19 Speaker 01 Yeah. So, I mean, by the time I had, was being evaluated for surgery, it was already, the next day, it was already scheduled. They were drawing markings on me. And they just sort of briefly went over what the procedure was. It was just called top surgery, not mastectomy. I didn't know even what brush she looked like. I think it's important to realize how desensitizing they make everything. I don't think I realized the actual damage I did to my body until much, much later on. I mean, calling it top surgery doesn't even really acknowledge that there are specific glands there that are organs.
58:55 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, it's as vague a term as you could possibly invent, as vague and harmless a term. Yeah, right. And that's purposeful and motivated, like bottom surgery, which is, although it's difficult for things to be worse, that's worse.
59:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
59:10 Jordan B. Peterson? So, okay, now you said, okay, top surgery. Now you're marked up and you're ready to go. You already have some ambivalence about the way that you appear.
59:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
59:22 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, yeah, okay. And now the surgeons have decided that you've already been cleared by the people who need to clear you
59:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
59:29 Jordan B. Peterson? for surgical appropriateness.
59:31 Speaker 01 Right.
59:31 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay. I guess one of the things you're going to discover legally is how much additional responsibility surgeons have to ensure that the people that they're relying on to clear people for top surgery have done their jobs properly.
59:48 Speaker 01 What's interesting about my case too is even in my referral notes, which the surgeon saw, there's conflicting information. One of them says I had held a male identity since puberty. And the other one said I'd had a strong male identity since early childhood. So immediately, like, you can tell it's sort of rubber stamped and they didn't really look through it. Because if they look through it, they'd see that glaring contradiction.
1:00:12 Jordan B. Peterson? And you have those records?
1:00:14 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:00:15 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so now you wake up after surgery.
1:00:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:00:22 Jordan B. Peterson? What's that like?
1:00:23 Speaker 01 I felt like I'd been hit by a car. Like, I didn't even, going into surgery, I was not nervous. I was totally calm. I had zero feelings about what was even gonna happen. And I wasn't even shaking.
1:00:36 Jordan B. Peterson? What do you mean, zero feelings?
1:00:38 Speaker 01 I was so numb at that point. And I think I just didn't really, I was so dissociated as well.
1:00:43 Jordan B. Peterson? What do you mean dissociated?
1:00:45 Speaker 01 I wasn't living in my body. I wasn't thinking of myself as part of my body. I was totally disconnected from my physical being. And I think my identity...
1:00:55 Jordan B. Peterson? Do you know what derealization is?
1:00:57 Speaker 01 Yes. Yeah.
1:00:58 Jordan B. Peterson? How come? How come you know that?
1:01:00 Speaker 01 I've heard about it from psychologists I've spoken to.
1:01:03 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so that's your state of mind going into surgery?
1:01:07 Speaker 01 Essentially, yeah. And it was pretty glaringly obvious, in my opinion. I was smiling and bubbly. I had no nerves. I had no questions, nothing to ask. And when I woke up, obviously, all of that was gone. I was just in tremendous pain and very out of it physically.
1:01:24 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, what's been the consequence of the surgery?
1:01:27 Speaker 01 Well, I didn't have breasts, and I have a lot of chest pain related to hormonal cycles from the tissue that was left over, which is pretty painful to this day. And it wasn't something I even realized until I fully stopped testosterone, because once I stopped testosterone and my hormonal cycle was able to somewhat regulate, then I started having really intense chest pain related to my hormonal cycles.
1:01:54 Jordan B. Peterson? When you stopped testosterone, did you re-undergo female puberty? What happened?
1:02:01 Speaker 01 I wasn't sure what would have happened if I stopped, so I had talked about it with doctors, and they were like, "We don't know." But I sort of progressed a little bit through female puberty, but mostly no changes, just sort of slight redistribution of fat and things like that.
1:02:17 Jordan B. Peterson? Do you know what your reproductive status is?
1:02:20 Speaker 01 I don't know.
1:02:22 Jordan B. Peterson? Were you... How was the issue of your reproductive status dealt with by your physician, your counselor, and your surgeon?
1:02:31 Speaker 01 It was always brushed over by people. It was always something like, "Oh, well, how could you worry about that when this child is suicidal?" Is what they would sort of... How they would deal with it with my parents, who would always bring up, "Well, what about future fertility?" They'd be like, "Well, that's not important when we're dealing with something so..."
1:02:47 Jordan B. Peterson? So the crisis justifies...
1:02:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:02:50 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, okay. And what about sexual function? How was that dealt with and discussed?
1:02:56 Speaker 01 That was also something that wasn't really brought up as a concern. And then later on, I had to go on topical estrogen as well. And that was also something that wasn't really brought up as a potential thing that I would need to do in the future.
1:03:08 Jordan B. Peterson? Why did you have to go on topical estrogen?
1:03:11 Speaker 01 Because of vaginal atrophy.
1:03:13 Jordan B. Peterson? How much did you understand when you were 14, do you think? And let's try to give the devil his due, right? Because you'll have to do that in court, for example. Like, how much of that? How much do you think you understood of what you were doing in terms of its permanence and significance?
1:03:31 Speaker 01 At the time, I truly believed that I would become male and that this would somehow fix all my problems, which is so not accurate to what was actually happening. So I say I understood basically nothing of what was actually going on and what was actually chemically happening to my body. I didn't really understand hormonal cycles and how much that plays into emotions.
1:03:55 Jordan B. Peterson? Did you have any? How did you reconcile the? I mean, you had your, you had top surgery, but you didn't have bottom surgery. So how did you reconcile that obvious difference between you and the man you were supposed to become?
1:04:12 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:04:12 Jordan B. Peterson? And how was that dealt with by your physician, your therapist and your surgeon?
1:04:17 Speaker 01 It was something that was always sort of like, well, you can fix that. Like, I was thinking about bottom surgery when I was a teenager. It was brought up to me by therapists, and I had been thinking about it and researching it. And, you know, by the time I was 16, 17, and I was breaking down in ways that were unrelated to my gender, I started getting help and my gender dysphoria was just gone after that. I just felt no desire to keep doing it or no reason to continue presenting as male after I had sort of gone through therapy about the sexual abuse. But prior to that, yeah.
1:04:50 Jordan B. Peterson? That helped, that there, okay, so that's interesting. So, oh, hmm, okay. So let's delve into that a little bit. Because I guess that's associated. Because one of the things we haven't discussed is, well, why did you detransition, right? And you've made some reference to that now, I think. Okay, so now, I guess we'll just keep walking through it chronologically.
1:05:13 Jordan B. Peterson? You've undergone surgery, so, but not bottom surgery, let's say, but that's in principle offering itself in the future. Okay, so now what happens? You, was, was there any reconciliation of your discomfort about how your upper body appeared?
1:05:29 Speaker 01 No.
1:05:29 Jordan B. Peterson? After, okay.
1:05:30 Speaker 01 After top surgery, not really. I mean, the problem of, I have breasts was gone, but also at the end of that, I was also thinking, well, I didn't really need to do that because they were already somewhat deformed anyways. And I still don't like the way that I look and I still feel uncomfortable. So that didn't really resolve, but at the time I was sort of done transitioning. So I was in this place of like, I don't really know where to go next and things are just getting worse and it just kept getting worse.
1:05:59 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay. And you're 15 now?
1:06:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, I was 14, 15.
1:06:04 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, now, when do you find another therapist?
1:06:08 Speaker 01 Uh, 16, 17, I believe.
1:06:11 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, and you said that that was effective?
1:06:14 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:06:15 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, tell me that story.
1:06:16 Speaker 01 Well, I had sort of started opening up and realizing I needed to deal with a lot of the sexual trauma that I had.
1:06:22 Jordan B. Peterson? Opening up to who?
1:06:24 Speaker 01 I had talked a little bit to my parents about it and sort of just came to terms with it in my own head.
1:06:29 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so you'd revealed some of it to them?
1:06:31 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:06:31 Jordan B. Peterson? How did they react?
1:06:32 Speaker 01 Vaguely, I revealed some of it and they were very, very concerned and very distressed. And I think they immediately sort of questioned why I was in gender therapy. They immediately wanted to put me in treatment for sexual assault only.
1:06:46 Jordan B. Peterson? Oh, I see, okay. So once they had the other details?
1:06:49 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:06:49 Jordan B. Peterson? They could put two and two together?
1:06:51 Speaker 01 Right.
1:06:51 Jordan B. Peterson? And so they encouraged you to find another therapist? They helped, how did that play out?
1:06:55 Speaker 01 They helped me find another therapist, yeah.
1:06:57 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so you found another therapist. Why didn't you, why did you find a different therapist?
1:07:03 Speaker 01 Because the therapy that I was doing was so surface level and wasn't actually addressing any issues in my mind. It was just creating more issues and giving me...
1:07:12 Jordan B. Peterson? Why did you come to that conclusion?
1:07:14 Speaker 01 Because they kept affirming that I was somehow intrinsically male and that would solve all my problems. And then, once I matched the outward appearance of a male and I didn't feel better, they had no answers for me.
1:07:24 Jordan B. Peterson? I see, okay, okay. And then you open up to, okay, so then you start more deeply considering the potential effect of the sexual abuse?
1:07:33 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:07:34 Jordan B. Peterson? Then you talk to your parents, then they help you find another therapist?
1:07:37 Speaker 01 Right.
1:07:38 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay. ¿Cómo es que ese terapeuta es diferente del terapeuta anterior?
1:07:43 Speaker 01 Ese terapeuta apenas habló sobre mi género. Ni siquiera lo discutimos. Quizás... Hablamos de ello tal vez una vez. Pasamos por ello y dije, sí, he sido identificada como trans. Y luego solo tratamos de mi trauma de juicio infantil, mi asalto sexual.
1:07:58 Jordan B. Peterson? ¿Cómo fue entrenado tu nuevo terapeuta? ¿Cuál era su especialidad?
1:08:01 Speaker 01 DBT y CBT fueron sus terapias.
1:08:04 Jordan B. Peterson? ¿Psicólogo de doctorado?
1:08:05 Speaker 01 Sí.
1:08:06 Jordan B. Peterson? ¿Sabes dónde fueron entrenados?
1:08:07 Speaker 01 No estoy segura.
1:08:08 Jordan B. Peterson? Está bien, vale. ¿Psicólogo de doctorado? Está bien, está bien. Y fue un enfoque más orientado a la terapia de comportamiento. Está bien, ¿y qué hicieron con usted?
1:08:19 Speaker 01 Pasamos por terapia de comportamiento dialectal. Y luego también hice algo llamado terapia de exposición imaginar, que me ayudó a recordar muchas de las brechas que no realmente había llenado. Y luego, una vez que hicimos eso, hicimos mucha terapia de conversación general.
1:08:33 Jordan B. Peterson? Está bien, ¿por qué crees que...? ¿Qué hablabas que crees que fue útil?
1:08:38 Speaker 01 La cosa número uno que creo que fue útil de la que hablamos es cómo esa experiencia desde el juicio me hizo pensar en lo que significaba ser mujer y qué factores externos...
1:08:48 Jordan B. Peterson? ¿Y qué concluyiste?
1:08:49 Speaker 01 Concluí que había estado atribuyendo mucho odio por mi propia personalidad. Había estado poniendo mucho de mis propias experiencias en la personalidad como un todo. Y había estado quitándome eso de mí durante mucho tiempo.
1:09:02 Jordan B. Peterson? Correcto, así que la personalidad como la causa de tu sufrimiento.
1:09:06 Speaker 01 Sí.
1:09:07 Jordan B. Peterson? Está bien, está bien. Y ese terapeuta fue efectivo.
1:09:11 Speaker 01 Sí, muy efectivo.
1:09:12 Jordan B. Peterson? Está bien, ¿y cuáles fueron las consecuencias para tus síntomas de depresión y ansiedad?
1:09:17 Speaker 01 Realmente resolvió muy rápido. Quiero decir, todavía...
1:09:19 Jordan B. Peterson? ¿Alguna medicación asociada a eso?
1:09:21 Speaker 01 Estaba en medicación cuando tenía 15 años. Empezé a poner antipsicóticos y antidepresivos.
1:09:28 Jordan B. Peterson? Oh, sí. ¿Eso fue cuando todavía estaba tomando testosterona?
1:09:30 Speaker 01 Sí.
1:09:31 Jordan B. Peterson? Está bien, ¿entonces tuviste la testosterona?
1:09:32 Speaker 01 Sí.
1:09:33 Jordan B. Peterson? ¿Tuviste los medicamentos psicóticos antes de ir a la terapia?
1:09:37 Speaker 01 No, fui a los medicamentos psicóticos alrededor del momento en que iba a la terapia con el segundo terapeuta. Y luego dejé de tomar testosterona después de eso.
1:09:45 Jordan B. Peterson? Pero tu depresión y la ansiedad se resolvió, incluso cuando dejaste de tomar testosterona.
1:09:49 Speaker 01 Sí.
1:09:50 Jordan B. Peterson? Why?
1:09:52 Speaker 01 I think the main factor was definitely the testosterone because...
1:09:56 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so that quelled the psychosis symptoms.
1:09:58 Speaker 01 That quelled the psychosis.
1:09:59 Jordan B. Peterson? Why do you think your depression and anxiety went away?
1:10:01 Speaker 01 I think it was because I was actually going through therapy that was actually talking about my issues and not just...
1:10:08 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so you think you got to the cause, the actual cause. How did you resolve it? I mean, you had reason to blame your female illness, so to speak, because that did make you vulnerable in that way. So, how did you, how did you and your therapist? What reconfiguration of the way you looked at things worked for you?
1:10:29 Speaker 01 I started really focusing on what I wanted my life to look like on my terms and not just how I could fit into other things. And started trying to focus on more goal-oriented things rather than letting my mental problems be the main focus of my life.
1:10:45 Jordan B. Peterson? How did you discover what your goals were?
1:10:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, we just sort of talked about things I like and things I'm really passionate about beyond gender, beyond my mental health issues and what I really love doing and that gave me sort of a focus and purpose. I mean, I love theater, I love literature and that gave me a lot of drive to go to school as well.
1:11:03 Jordan B. Peterson? How did you, or did you, and if so, configure your view of being female?
1:11:09 Speaker 01 I mean, that sort of came second in a way because we were going through this whole therapy process and not really talking about my gender at all. And then sort of after I was done with therapy, I'm in college, I'm much better off. And that's when I came to the decision I wanted to de-transition because I had built a life around me that had nothing to do with my gender and I had reconciled with my own problems. And that's sort of when I came to the conclusion that there was no reason to keep presenting as male.
1:11:38 Jordan B. Peterson? That's a complicated realization. I mean, you had to... Okay, that really requires some unpacking because that's actually really hard, you know? If you wait forty minutes for a bus that's supposed to be there in five minutes, it's harder and harder to move away from the bus stop because you've already invested forty minutes, right? That's the sunk cost fallacy.
1:11:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:11:59 Jordan B. Peterson? Well, you had a social community around you at school that established your identity. Your parents had gone through hell to, and you as well, along the way to establish this new identity. You took puberty blockers, you took testosterone, then you had surgery. How in the world did you reconcile yourself to the realization that that was not right?
1:12:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:12:28 Jordan B. Peterson? Because like you'd put a lot, there was a lot at stake.
1:12:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:12:31 Jordan B. Peterson? So how did you do that?
1:12:34 Speaker 01 It was really, really difficult and once I sort of started to think about it and think about, "Do I really want to do this?" and skipping injections and missing testosterone doses and just everything around me sort of came crashing down and I just started feeling this tremendous grief about what I had just done. It was really jarring.
1:12:55 Jordan B. Peterson? No doubt, no doubt, but even that could be an impediment to like admission that the path was wrong.
1:13:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:13:03 Jordan B. Peterson? I mean, there's a lot of things you have to realize that the path was wrong. Your parents were deceived, that would be part of the realization. You were hurt and damaged in consequence of it. There's all these years that you spent in limbo at least that were misapplied. You have to admit that not only you were wrong, so to speak, but everyone around you was wrong, including the authorities, the so-called authorities, which means that now your relationship to authority is also altered.
1:13:39 Jordan B. Peterson? I still don't exactly understand how you managed it. The therapist helped?
1:13:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, therapist helped.
1:13:44 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, now partly because you said that you were focused on some things that you actually wanted to do.
1:13:48 Speaker 01 Right, yeah.
1:13:49 Jordan B. Peterson? That weren't gender related?
1:13:51 Speaker 01 No.
1:13:51 Jordan B. Peterson? You started to plot out a pathway into the future?
1:13:53 Speaker 01 Right, I started to think about things other than myself and thinking about school and what I wanted for my future, which led me to the conversation in my own head of, "Do I want kids one day?", which also helped with that realization.
1:14:05 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so why, what did you realize?
1:14:07 Speaker 01 I wanted kids and I could not picture myself as someone's father. And I really tried to picture it.
1:14:13 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, I talked to another young woman who, she didn't go as far down the path as you did, but one of the things that stopped her eventually, she started living as a boy at school and she didn't let her parents know, but, but she was on the pathway.
1:14:29 Speaker 01 Right.
1:14:30 Jordan B. Peterson? And then they found out and, but one of her realizations was she said she fantasized about being a father, let's say, about being an adult male at some point in the future and thought, "No."
1:14:42 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
1:14:44 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so had you not done that before?
1:14:47 Speaker 01 No.
1:14:47 Jordan B. Peterson? What, was there no projection into the future that far?
1:14:50 Speaker 01 No.
1:14:50 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, well, that's not atypical either, you know, like, I've worked with adolescents, young adolescents, trying to get them to plan out their future to some degree. By the time you're in your early twenties, you might be able to do that for five years into the future.
1:15:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:15:06 Jordan B. Peterson? My sense with thirteen and fourteen year olds was, a few months into the future is a long ways.
1:15:12 Speaker 01 Right.
1:15:13 Jordan B. Peterson? And even tomorrow is quite a distance, right? And that's part of cortical maturation too, right? The more you mature cortically, the longer time span you can take into account. So you just hadn't projected yourself that far into the future?
1:15:28 Speaker 01 No, I just couldn't picture it in my mind, really.
1:15:31 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, but then you started becoming able to do that.
1:15:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, once I was older and actually like in college and thinking about my future in a way that was more tangible, it started to hit me.
1:15:41 Jordan B. Peterson? Two things, I guess, I'm curious about now is, why the lawsuit? Three things, why the lawsuit? Why the podcast? And who else have you talked to broadly, publicly? Why the podcast? And also then maybe finally, your attitude towards being female now?
1:16:00 Speaker 01 Yeah. The lawsuit specifically is because Olson Kennedy, and she said this in countless interviews and talked about this very openly. She doesn't believe in gatekeeping. And she's very open about how she doesn't think it's possible that mental health comorbidities could ever affect someone's gender identity. And I just want to say that that is so wrong. And that's directly hurt and ruined in my eyes, my life. And I think that that approach to healthcare is so dangerous. And it's not just dangerous, it's malpractice, at least in cases like mine. And I think the reason for talking about it so publicly is I also just want to spread awareness that this does happen. People like to act like this never happens
1:16:44 Speaker 01 or no children transition, but that's not true.
1:16:47 Jordan B. Peterson? Yes, it's seriously not true.
1:16:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:16:50 Jordan B. Peterson? Right. And while it's worse than that, because as I pointed out at the beginning of this interview, it's illegal and unprofessional. If this was a clinical interview, what I did in this interview would be illegal and unprofessional. Right, it'd be enough to get me barred from my practice. In fact, my practice is actually under threat for questioning exactly this kind of process. Yeah, well, it stops. I was in a fortunate position to some degree because I'm not dependent on my professional status for my financial support or for that of my family. But most people don't have that
1:17:29 Speaker 01 Right.
1:17:29 Jordan B. Peterson? option. Right, so that means I would have to lie to you.
1:17:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:17:34 Jordan B. Peterson? Right. And that's not good, to say the least.
1:17:38 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:17:38 Jordan B. Peterson? Because the last thing you need when you're 12 and confused is some idiot professional lying to you.
1:17:44 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:17:44 Jordan B. Peterson? Especially when they're trying to justify their own ideological stance.
1:17:48 Speaker 01 Right.
1:17:48 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so when did you publicly announce the lawsuit? And what have you done?
1:17:59 Jordan B. Peterson? Publicly on the detransition front. Who else, like, have you spoken and interacted with other detransitioners?
1:18:05 Speaker 01 I've spoken to some detransitioners, mostly like online or just phone calls. And that's been really nice to hear that other people have also gone through this. Even though I'm sad that they've also gone through this, it's nice that I'm not alone. I, the lawsuit came out, I believe, December 6th. But I had spoken to Billboard Chris a bit before that, pretty publicly.
1:18:25 Jordan B. Peterson? Quite the effective troublemaker.
1:18:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, so that got a lot of attention. And I just sort of outlined my entire story in that short little street.
1:18:33 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, how did you meet him?
1:18:34 Speaker 01 It was totally coincidental. I was walking home on UCLA campus and I just saw him.
1:18:39 Jordan B. Peterson? Oh, so you just bumped into him?
1:18:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:18:41 Jordan B. Peterson? Tell everybody who Billboard Chris is first.
1:18:43 Speaker 01 Billboard Chris is awesome. And he just stands around with a billboard and has conversations with people about puberty blockers. And I just totally ran into him and we had a nice conversation.
1:18:54 Jordan B. Peterson? Now, he's a Canadian.
1:18:55 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:18:56 Jordan B. Peterson? And he travels all over the world doing this, standing on sidewalks.
1:18:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:19:00 Jordan B. Peterson? And often being harassed.
1:19:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:19:04 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, he's, he's quite the strange character.
1:19:07 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:19:08 Jordan B. Peterson? And he's obviously very committed to this. Okay, so you just happened to bump into him?
1:19:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:19:14 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so tell, tell that story.
1:19:15 Speaker 01 Well, I'd seen his stuff online before and I'd, I'd seen him be harassed and had coffee thrown at him. And I just wanted to tell him, like, as somebody directly impacted by puberty blockers, I really appreciated what he was doing. And then he just asked about my story and we sort of had a conversation about it. And it got a lot more attention than I was expecting because I had had that conversation weeks before the lawsuit was supposed to come out. So I wasn't really supposed to be talking too much. So I tried to keep it vague when talking to him, but it got a lot of attention. And it was nice to see that other people were so sympathetic to my story.
1:19:50 Jordan B. Peterson? Why do you think it got attention? I mean, he gets some attention.
1:19:54 Speaker 01 He definitely gets attention on his own.
1:19:56 Jordan B. Peterson? But, but, but, no, it was predictable. I think that's actually where I became aware of you. I think that's, I think it was that event.
1:20:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:20:03 Jordan B. Peterson? That triggered my reaching out to you initially. You know, I found out afterwards about the lawsuit and that it was also aimed at Olson Kennedy, who's someone I'm interested in for a variety of reasons. But I think it was that Billboard Chris interview. So why do you think? What's your understanding of why that was so widely viewed and attended to?
1:20:25 Speaker 01 I said Olson Kennedy's name and that was right after that information had come out about her hiding the study. And it was also, I think, just because of my age at the time that these things happened. It was definitely jarring to hear.
1:20:41 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, right. Yes, well, you also, you're also quiet and soft spoken and eminently reasonable in your public presentation. And so that probably didn't hurt. Right, so, right. Okay, so, the lawsuit. Are you mounting that or your parents? Like, how, how is that progressing and how is it supported? It's expensive. How are you doing this?
1:21:09 Speaker 01 I'm mounting that mostly, but I'm working with some awesome law firms and I'm working with Campbell, Miller, Payne. And all they do is detransition lawsuits. They work with Presha Mosley as well and other clients who are also detransitioners. So that's kind of all they do. So they were able to help me out a lot. And it's mostly me mounting it. I mean, my parents are supportive. They just don't really want to be public about it, which I totally understand.
1:21:33 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, right. And where are you with the lawsuit?
1:21:35 Speaker 01 We just started. It was filed in December, so things are...
1:21:39 Jordan B. Peterson? Oh, okay, so this is really new.
1:21:40 Speaker 01 Pretty fresh, yeah.
1:21:41 Jordan B. Peterson? And what are the, what are you asking for? What are the, what are the claims and what is the... Describe the suit.
1:21:48 Speaker 01 I mean vaguely malpractice and just asking for damages. And I've gone through breast reconstruction surgery and had to pay out of pocket for that. And all the medical costs associated with future things like fertility or my other medical problems related to hormonal things. I would just like some compensation for those costs.
1:22:06 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, and then with regards to the public impact of this, what are you hoping for?
1:22:10 Speaker 01 I am hoping for change. I don't want to demand anything. I'm not a lawmaker or a doctor, so I can't make any broad assertions. But I definitely think the standard of care where it's at right now is pretty abysmal.
1:22:22 Jordan B. Peterson? What would you like to see be the case?
1:22:24 Speaker 01 I would like to see people working on helping people rather than pushing as many things as quickly as possible and getting people to agree to as many things quickly as possible. Because that's definitely what seems to be the trend, not actually helping kids and investigating what's going on with these kids. It's more the fight to prescribe them as many things as possible.
1:22:45 Jordan B. Peterson? Well, the standard of care before all of this became politicized was, some of this was established in Alberta at CAMH. And the man who established it, he was just a clinician. He had his career destroyed. He had been working with kids with gender dysphoria for a very long period of time. And his conclusion was,
1:23:08 Jordan B. Peterson? "The overarching condition is depression and anxiety. Some of that's focused on bodily concerns. The basic standard of care should be focused on the depression and anxiety. And you should leave well enough alone, at least till the age of 18, where most people..."
1:23:26 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:23:27 Jordan B. Peterson? "...it reconciles, just like puberty reconciles for most people." Right, and his career was destroyed for that, once it became politicized.
1:23:34 Speaker 01 That's crazy.
1:23:34 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, and he was... He even launched a lawsuit on the people who just... Against the people who destroyed his career and was eventually vindicated. But, you know, it took like, I don't know how many years, a very long period of time. Right, so that was a perfectly sane and professionally appropriate standard of care. And it's based on the principle of first do no harm.
1:23:58 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:23:59 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, which is a good rule of thumb. Right, okay, so...
1:24:04 Jordan B. Peterson? What are you doing with your life at the moment apart from the lawsuit?
1:24:08 Speaker 01 Right now, I'm just in college and trying to get things together.
1:24:11 Jordan B. Peterson? Are you at UCLA?
1:24:11 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:24:13 Jordan B. Peterson? Hmm, so what's that been like now that you have a certain degree of notoriety? And UCLA is quite a politicized campus?
1:24:21 Speaker 01 It's been a little difficult, I won't lie. I've definitely been noticed a bit more times than I'd like and...
1:24:26 Jordan B. Peterson? Noticed how?
1:24:28 Speaker 01 People have asked me about things and brought up very sort of... A lot of the information that I'm talking about publicly is very, very personal and not something I really just want to like talk about in everyday conversations. So having people like very kind of hostilely confront me and tell me that I'm a bad person for talking about my experiences or things like that.
1:24:47 Jordan B. Peterson? How often does that happen?
1:24:49 Speaker 01 Thankfully infrequently, but it's happened a couple of times.
1:24:52 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, well, it doesn't have to happen that often.
1:24:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:24:55 Jordan B. Peterson? Or it's like, you don't have to be accosted hostilely by strangers very often for it actually to be a concern. Right. Is possible for you to continue at UCLA under those conditions?
1:25:06 Speaker 01 I hope so. I think so. So far, most people close to me have been awesome and really supportive. And most people that know me are nice.
1:25:14 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so you have a social support network?
1:25:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:25:16 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so maybe we'll close this part then with a discussion.
1:25:22 Jordan B. Peterson? You went through dialectical behavior therapy and with some marked degree of success under relatively trying conditions, so that's quite surprising. And maybe that's a testament to your persistence and honesty and also to the skill of your therapist. That would be my guess. And now your attitude towards your sex has changed. Okay. You said partly that was because you... What exactly? You understood what happened when you were six?
1:25:58 Speaker 01 I started to-
1:25:59 Jordan B. Peterson? How did you reconcile yourself to that?
1:26:01 Speaker 01 I started to contextualize it and truly understand it as abuse and something that I shouldn't just avoid, which is how I had seen it for a very long time. And once I started to reconcile with that, I was actually able to confront-
1:26:15 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so that takes some of the guilt off you.
1:26:17 Speaker 01 Right.
1:26:17 Jordan B. Peterson? Well, this other kid was 10?
1:26:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:26:21 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so it wasn't like he was particularly well-supervised.
1:26:25 Speaker 01 No.
1:26:25 Jordan B. Peterson? 10 is also not very old.
1:26:27 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:26:28 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so there's a story there too.
1:26:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:26:30 Jordan B. Peterson? So, you know, from the perspective of a six-year-old, a 10-year-old is might as well be an adult.
1:26:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:26:35 Jordan B. Peterson? But from the perspective of a 17-year-old, a six-year-old and a 10-year-old are both kids.
1:26:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:26:41 Jordan B. Peterson? So, okay, so you could contextualize it more effectively.
1:26:44 Speaker 01 Right.
1:26:45 Jordan B. Peterson? And that removed some of the guilt shame from you.
1:26:48 Speaker 01 Right.
1:26:48 Jordan B. Peterson? Or all of it?
1:26:49 Speaker 01 Most of it, and I was also able to sort of understand, obviously, I can never understand why exactly, but you also mentioned like with another kid, there's also something happening on that end. And I was able to fully sort of understand that it wasn't something I did and just nothing wrong with me.
1:27:04 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, well, who knows what the history of that kid was?
1:27:06 Speaker 01 Probably something awful as well.
1:27:08 Jordan B. Peterson? Well, that would be at least something you would investigate if you're trying to figure it out, because something happened. And then you'd also wonder, well, what, why was, how was it situationally that this could occur repeatedly in secrecy?
1:27:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:27:25 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, because that's part of the situational determinants. Okay, but you worked through that. Okay, and then what, that alleviated some of your concern about being female as well?
1:27:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, to me, I, once I started sort of thinking about what had happened to me, and I started thinking about why I was doing the things that I was doing, why was I really trying to hide my chest? Why was I trying to conceal my sex? And it was really just because I was suffering from really, really concealed PTSD that I had just thought wasn't happening, but I was just in constant fear essentially.
1:28:01 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, right. And so, okay, so why do you think that fear and PTSD reconciled, resolved?
1:28:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, I think once I was able to notice it, I was able to think about other ways to sort of calm that instead of just letting it rule my life. And that's what I was doing by living as a different sex.
1:28:20 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so once you identified it.
1:28:22 Speaker 01 Right.
1:28:23 Jordan B. Peterson? And worked, walked through it.
1:28:25 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:28:25 Jordan B. Peterson? Reconfigured it. So that took out the shame and the guilt, but also some of the fear of being female.
1:28:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:28:32 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, now you said at the same time, you were also starting to think about, say, having kids.
1:28:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:28:37 Jordan B. Peterson? So you were starting to contemplate in the future, well, the preeminent advantage of being female, which obviously is to have kids. And that, and that what? That became attractive.
1:28:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:28:49 Jordan B. Peterson? Yes?
1:28:50 Speaker 01 I started thinking about wanting to have kids and how much satisfaction that would bring me. And it made me really sad that I might have taken that opportunity away from myself at such a young age.
1:29:00 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so now you could see, I see. So once you shed the guilt and the fear and the shame, you could see opportunity?
1:29:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:29:10 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, right. Well, that's a good definition of reconciliation. So as far as you're concerned now, how would you characterize your identity now?
1:29:20 Speaker 01 I'm female and I'm happy to be female. I don't really try and think about my identity because I think spending so long attributing everything in my life to something wrong with my identity or my physical being was what was driving a lot of my unhealthy behaviors.
1:29:35 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, okay. All right, well, I think, I think, is there anything else that you want to bring up that we haven't covered? Is there anything you want to tell the audience, let's say, before we bring this to a close?
1:29:47 Speaker 01 Not specifically, nothing beyond the fact that I don't really have a political agenda. I'm not doing this for, I've already been accused of doing this for attention and that's the last of my wants. I just want to spread awareness about this and I can't sit by and let people say that this doesn't happen when this is something that has truly ruptured my life.
1:30:08 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay, so if you were gonna, and you are in fact, doing this, if, if, what words do you have to say to someone who's 11, who's female, who's confused?
1:30:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:30:20 Jordan B. Peterson? So you, you can address people like that right now? You've been through the mill, let's say.
1:30:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:30:27 Jordan B. Peterson? So what do you say to someone who's to you when you're 11?
1:30:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:30:32 Jordan B. Peterson? What do you say?
1:30:33 Speaker 01 I would say that there is nothing physically wrong with you. And anything that you think is physically wrong with you is because something external is making you feel like there's something wrong with you. That there is nothing you need to fix about your body. You're fine. You're perfect just the way you are. Anything that's making you feel differently is totally external.
1:30:55 Jordan B. Peterson? And so should be dealt with in that manner.
1:30:57 Speaker 01 Right.
1:30:58 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so don't look to your body first.
1:31:00 Speaker 01 Right, exactly.
1:31:03 Jordan B. Peterson? Yeah, well, that's very much akin to the principle of minimal necessary intervention, right? Don't use surgery where discussion would suffice.
1:31:12 Speaker 01 Exactly.
1:31:13 Jordan B. Peterson? For example, right? Or more than suffice in your situation. It not only sufficed, but was curative.
1:31:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:31:20 Jordan B. Peterson? Right. And so that should have been attempted first, obviously.
1:31:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly.
1:31:26 Jordan B. Peterson? Right, so your depression and anxiety should have been dealt with. You know, I talked to Chloe Cole.
1:31:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:31:32 Jordan B. Peterson? And I structured the conversation similarly, at least insofar as delving into the particulars of your diagnosis. Right? There's no excuse for not telling you that that dysphoric state is common. Right, that it's
1:31:55 Jordan B. Peterson? it's part of what young women experience when they go through puberty. That exacerbation of depression and anxiety that can be severe. That desire to hide. That and that elevated sense of concern about bodily appearance.
1:32:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:32:10 Jordan B. Peterson? Obviously, you're going to be concerned about bodily appearance when all sorts of strange things are happening. They indicate a new status and vulnerability that you have no real idea how to deal with. And you're mutable. However, so it's inexcusable that you weren't
1:32:31 Jordan B. Peterson? told that. Now, I would say with regards to the abuse, that's more complex, right? Because you didn't tell them. And then that begs the question of whether, you know, that was just abject refusal on your part or whether...
1:32:50 Jordan B. Peterson? Some additional time and a bit more curiosity, a little less jumping to conclusions. Well, we could, let's, let's end with that. How much questioning do you think it would have taken when you were 12 to find out from you that something had happened to you when you were little?
1:33:12 Speaker 01 Right. I mean, I'm not a psychologist, so I obviously can't put myself in their shoes. But in my opinion, I don't think it would have taken much because I had had a lot of strange ideas about what it meant to be female or what it meant to be male or sexuality or things like that. And it had even been pointed out by my peers that my knowledge of sexuality was a bit inappropriate. And I think if they had just poked a little bit about some of the experiences that I had had or my opinions, or just even asked if I had had any inappropriate experiences with other kids, I think I would have been able to say something.
1:33:51 Jordan B. Peterson? Okay. Well, I think we'll leave it at that. I think what we'll do for everybody watching and listening, I think what we'll do on the Daily Wire side is delve a little bit more into issues of, of identity, right? Because one of the subtexts in this conversation was, and this is a consequence of the reign of a particular sort of ideology, is that identity is best conceptualized, let's say, in gendered or even sexual terms. And that, that's by no means obvious. And there's a fair bit of reason also to assume that that in itself is harmful. So one of the things that personality and clinical psychologists know,
1:34:36 Jordan B. Peterson? for example, is that narrow self-concern and misery are identical statistically and conceptually. Any ideology that enhances narrow self-consciousness necessarily produces negative emotion. So we should talk, we'll talk about identity on the Daily Wire side. And that gives us an additional half an hour for this conversation for those of you that are inclined to join us there. Clementine, thank you very much for coming to talk about this. And you do it in a remarkable, remarkably calm and composed manner, given the...
1:35:17 Jordan B. Peterson? What would you say? Severity of the situation. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, everybody.
Previous 530. Failure or Success in the Time of Trump | Jim Balsillie Next 532. A Dialogue So Dangerous, It Just Might Bring You Wisdom | John Vervaeke and Jordan Hall Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated