Joe Rogan & Adam Conover Have In-Depth Discussion About Trans-athletes

What race is that lady's going to run and don't run those races? Yeah, run a different race. That's always been my advice. How do you feel about trans athletes? You know, it's a good question. I think we're really going to go through a cultural change on how we think about that. It's morphing so quickly, you know what I mean? I'm very much, because I am of this opinion that there is no such thing as perfect fairness and when we make those distinctions, we're always choosing who to allow. Because I think we should choose to allow trans people to participate in society, I'm for an inclusive approach where we're able to find a model that allows those folks to compete fairly in a way that everybody's happy with. I think that's what we should do. That to me is what makes me like sports more, is those comparisons. Another thing that pissed me off so much was like, fuck, what's his name? The disabled runner who then killed his girlfriend. Oscar's Pistorius. And people were saying about this guy that his prosthetic gave him an advantage. Now, first of all, there's no fucking way that's true, because he doesn't have muscles. Muscles convert food into... Yeah, but actually, it does give you an advantage. I mean, yeah, I think mechanically it does, because they're springs. Essentially, the way his leg works with those things is you've seen them, right? They don't even look remotely like feet. No, yeah, yeah. I've seen them, yeah, the cheater things, yeah. Yeah, it's a crazy, like, seat-saw type thing. But hold on a second, that's not an advantage. Because how mechanics work, right, is that a spring, you put energy into it and you get a little bit less energy out, right? So because that's the laws of thermodynamics, right? You can't get more out than you put in. Except a muscle does give you more than you put in, because a muscle converts food into energy for a brief period, right? And so he doesn't have springs, sorry, he has springs, he doesn't have a machine in his leg the way the rest of us do that creates force out of food, you know? Well, the real question is whether or not the lower half of his legs, which is what he's missing, could make up for the advantage, the mechanical advantage of the shape of those things which applies all sorts of really unusual leverage when you're running. It's totally, yeah. Because you're not, I mean, I don't know if it's, I mean, I don't know if you took him with full legs and took him with those things if they'd run the same amount of time, but the thing is, you can run fast as fuck with those things. You've seen those guys, right? Well, he could, right? But where's all the other double amputees who are, like, you know, common in ruining track and field? How many of them are trying to get out of here? I mean, the Paralympics is huge. There's like a ton of Paralympic athletes, you know? I've been told that it has a mechanical advantage by someone who actually should know what they're talking about, but I want to, I would like to look it up. Do those legs, Bistoris' legs, are they hard? I remember reading stuff at the time from, you know, exercise, whatever, athletic scientists, I forget what it's called, who said that it didn't, right? That it didn't. Yeah. But so that's a debate that we could have, right? But the point that I was trying to make was looking at that Olympics, God, that's a better event with that guy in it. You know, I'm so happy he was in it, right? I see what you're saying. But if it does give you an advantage, well, he didn't win. Well, he didn't win. He comes in second place. You know? Well, so the point is when we make the rules of a game, right? And this is the point of our episode about games, which is about the Olympics, actually. When we make the rules of a game, we are, there's no such thing as a perfectly fair competition that would be designed by God to be perfect and be perfectly fair, right? We're always making choices about what kind of competition we want to have and who we want to allow into it and what sort of outcome we want to have. You know what I mean? Right. Just like in baseball, too many home runs, move the mound up or down. You know how they change the rules a little bit because they want more home runs? Same thing with same thing with track and field. We change the rules a little bit to allow this person and not allow this person, right? I think that when we're talking about people, we should always try to include more people, not less. We should, you know, like if, and if, hey, if you're a double amputee and you can get your way into the Olympics and you can make a plausible case, I think we should try to entertain that notion and we should try to find a way to get that guy in there. Right? Where does trans athletes go? You know, we could have, we could sit here and talk for three hours about like all the different ways that hormones might affect your body and might not affect your body. And I'm not an expert on that and I don't want to claim to be right. But a sports with trans athletes who are, you know, competing with the, you know, with their gender, right? That's that is a sporting world that I'm more interested in. Right. And I think we should find a way to make that happen. I know it's going to be really complicated, complicated and messy. Right. There's going to be a lot of debate about it and it's going to make, it's going to be uncomfortable, you know, and there's going to be a lot of arguments. But you know, I hope that that's the world that we've moved forward to. That's my, that's my point of view. My point of view is that there's a reason, there's a distinction. There's a reason why we make the distinction to have male athletics versus female athletics. The reason is that males have a physiological physiological advantage over women. So in most sports, most physical sports, we do not have males compete with females. The question becomes when someone who is male transitions and becomes female, do those same physiological advantages apply? And what are the, what is the evidence? Well, the evidence in competition seems to be that it shows that it does apply, particularly in weightlifting, rugby, mountain biking, power heavy sports that are, that favor larger people, stronger bodies, males that transition to females have a significant advantage in their breaking world records. So if you're a woman and you're a natural woman and you don't take any extra hormones or male hormones, you're not taking steroids or any sort of performance enhancing drugs, you're doing your very best to compete and you're at the top of the heap. But then someone comes along, that was a man for 30 years and decides that they're going to be a woman. And this has happened and literally transitioned a few months ago and competes as a woman and destroys records and dominates you in that sport. That's bullshit. And that's not competing on a level playing field. That's a person who's biologically a male and who is a male for 30 plus years of having testosterone run through their body and affect their tendon strength and affect the shape of their bones and the mechanical advantages of the male hips versus the female hips. And then they're competing with smaller people who have been a woman their whole life. It's not fair. It's as much cheating as taking steroids when the other person doesn't or taking performance enhancing drugs when the other person doesn't, maybe even more so. Maybe even more so because you also have, there's a bunch of advantages in terms of reaction time that males enjoy. It's some significant difference in reaction time between males and even untrained males versus female professional athletes. Well, I disagree. And I've... What do you disagree about? My main point being the one that I already made, right? That like, I don't think that there is such a thing as a perfectly level playing field. I think we decide what kind of playing field we want to have. Sure, but we do make the distinction where we don't allow men to compete in women's divisions. And I think that that distinction may be breaking down a bit, right? And I think it may be time to break down that distinction a little bit. So you think that males should be able to compete in the women's division of weightlifting? No, I don't necessarily. But they can if they transition. Well, first of all, there's a lot of stuff to break down, right? And I'm not an expert on the subject, right? So it's just sort of my off the top of my head. One thing is, you know, you're postulating a particular person who decided to transition at the age of 30, right? And they were very big and strong before, right? And they decided to transition. Now, that is a type of person that exists, right? I think over the next, certainly 30 years, we're going to see, you know, now that people are starting to understand that being trans is just a way that people are, right? They're just people who are trans, you know, and this is something that we're going to accept and support, right? You're seeing folks transition much, much earlier age, you know? And so if someone is transitioning from the age of like, you know, seven years old, right? And, you know, working with those hormones, you know, from that age, right? They're not going to have, you know, their body situation will be very different than the one that you postulated, right? I also know from my trans friends that the effects that the hormones have on your body are like really profound, you know, like really, really profound. Like we're not like, to a surprising degree, right? And so, you know, I have, look, if the question is how does, you know, how does a person who starts taking hormones at a particular age, right? How does their body change and how does that affect vis-a-vis athletic performance? I don't know. We're in such new territory here, right? Yeah, we certainly are. And we particularly, we just scratched upon the idea of kids transitioning at a very early age. I mean, there's been more scientific evidence at points that if kids don't do that, then when they wanted to be trans at an early age, they just become gay men and that there's nothing wrong with that either. There's no reason to give kids hormones and there's no reason to decide before a person's frontal lobe is completely fully developed, which doesn't even take place until like 25. People don't know who they are. A seven-year-old, you won't even, people don't even give their seven-year-old phones. You don't let them vote. You're going to let them decide what sex they're going to be for the rest of their life. The research that I've seen, and again, I'm not an expert on this and, you know, I'd love to, this is a conversation, this is something I'd love to talk about on our show and I'd specifically love, you know, this is before, this is the kind of topic where I really want to make sure that I know the research and that I'm, you know, also speaking to trans folks, you know, in this conversation. But so to touch on just what I've, you know, my own experience and what I've, the research I've seen, the research I've seen is that trans kids from a young age, they are incredibly consistent in their, you know, when they're expressing their gender identity. But that's a big generalization. You're talking about a lot of human beings. Yeah, yeah. But that's, that's fits this narrative by saying they're incredibly consistent. But if you polled these people, like, what are you talking about? Like, if you, I mean, that's, look, I don't have the research in front of me that I saw, so I can't like go into the details on it. But like, yeah, it was, I mean, it was, you know, it was research that was surveying and tracking like trans kids who declared their identity from a young age. Did it change? It was, generally, no, it really didn't. And you know, I have a friend who has a, who has a trans kid, don't know the kids exact age, but you know, we're in the age range that we're talking about. And you know, he's explained that, like, well, you know, my child from a very young age consistently, like said, I am a girl, like, and has never contradicted themselves, never changed their mind. And so the humane thing and the thing that he felt was going to do as a parent was to like, embrace that choice on his child's part, right? And yeah, that's the embrace that choice, meaning hormonally, I shouldn't even phrase it as a choice, like, like embrace that identity. But it is a choice, right? I mean, if I'm choosing to add hormones to a child's body, that's a choice. It's a choice on the, it's the, it's a choice on the point on the part of the parent. It's not a choice in the on the, on the, on the part of the child to like, in the same way that being, let's say with it being gay, isn't a choice. Yeah. And that's who they are. If they think that they're a girl, why do you have to give them hormones to make them more of a girl? Uh, because I'm sorry, can you expand on the question? It's a simple question. If you say that the child thinks it's a girl, so you're going to give the child hormones. If the child thinks it's a girl, let it be a girl. Like you don't have, why are you adding hormones? If you're shooting hormones into a child and you're affecting the child's development, you're saying that's not a choice. That's nonsense. Of course it's a choice. You're choosing to chemically change this child's body. You're choosing to inject things into this child's body on a regular basis that are going to radically affect the physical development of their body. Yeah. And you're saying that this isn't a choice. Well, it's definitely a choice to do that. So what trans people express, um, and again, I'm not an expert. This is from me talking to my trans friends and, and, you know, uh, seeing what other trans folks say, um, is that the, you know, experience of being trans and not receiving hormones, right? And not, uh, having the body that you identify with the feeling of dysphoria, right? Is, um, extremely like painful, um, and is a condition unto itself. Right. Um, and, uh, the, the, the feeling of not belonging with the body that you have of that mismatch, right? That seems to be in the broad variety of humanity, the way that some people are born, right? Where their inner self, right? The self that they are, they're like, I am a, you know, they're not thinking they are a woman. They're like, this is the person that I am. Doesn't match the body that they have. Right. And that gives them extreme distress, right? And that leads to, you know, suicide that leads to, uh, you know, uh, other damaging behaviors. Right. And the best treatment for that, that we know exists is to, uh, you know, have, do gender confirmation via hormones. Um, and. And I know that that doesn't affect the suicide rate. The suicide rate for trans people is very high post-op and pre-op really doesn't get affected by whether or not you treat them. Well, the operation, uh, you know, one misconception is. The question can be why is that? Is that because they're not accepted by society and we're not more loving. Could it be underlying issues that are causing them to feel this way in the first place? Like, what is it? We don't know. And I'm sure it varies widely. Look, so all I can do is, uh, defer to the experts that, that I know about this, right? So, um, uh, you know, for instance, there's a author named Bryn Tana Hill, who's a, uh, former, uh, uh, former military helicopter pilot. I just interviewed her for my new podcast. Uh, that's coming out soon called factually. I'm doing it on ear wolf and it's like a long form interview podcast. Um, and so she's one of the people who's affected by, uh, the, uh, Trump, uh, military ban on trans service people, you know, so that's why you brought it on because she's trans. Yeah. Um, and, uh, she wrote a fantastic book called everything you need to know about trans that like, she's a, she is now a researcher, right? Um, and she went into really deep detail about like, here is all of the medical science. Here is all of, here's all the science about it. And so at this point in the conversation, I would say, Hey man, I just got a bone up on, you know, on that particular, because I don't want to speak to suicide rates. My entire concern is with children. My concern is not with young adults deciding to take steps to confirm their gender identity, who they feel they really are. I'm all for you doing whatever you want to do when you're an adult, when your mind is formed, but people change their mind, they change their opinion, they change their thoughts. There's nothing wrong with just deciding to be a gay man. There's nothing wrong with your body. Uh, you know, as you grow and mature and develop you growing out of these ideas, some will and some world and the ones who won't, they always have the option to do something later on in life. But if you do something to hormonally block a child very early on, there's no turning back from that. Well, let me say, let me say a few things to that. First of all, it's not wrong to be concerned about children. And there's a reason this is the most intense part of this conversation. And I think it's correct, right? Because we're all very concerned about children, right? But I do want to say, first of all, I don't think it's correct that trans people, if they don't receive hormones from an, from a young age, they simply become gay men because I know it happens very often. I know trans people. We could find that because it was a big article that was written about that recently where they were talking about whether or not gender confirmation surgery and hormone blockers on young children is ethical because of this fact. And this was what they were talking about where people at one point in time wanted to be trans and they listed several famous examples. And then as they became older, just decided to be gay, including women who wanted to be men, who just became gay women. And I think what's that girl's name that was in John Wick, Ruby Rose, she was one of those. She wanted to be trans when she was younger and now she's just a gay woman. So look, I know, I know quite a few trans folks, right? And I have to be honest, none of the ones that I know were, I don't know any trans women personally who were gay men up until they transitioned, right? I know quite a few trans women who were straight men, right? Or who, you know, lived their lives as presented as straight men, right? And then transitioned, right? And often become lesbians. Very odd. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the ways that people can be. I really recommend that. Oh, the other thing I was going to say is that I do know also among the trans folks that I know are the trans people who speak about this that I've heard, so many of them say I wish I had access. I knew this about myself at a very young age and I wish to God that I had, that we had, I had had the ability to receive, you know, these hormones at a young age. My life would be so much better. And I'm not going to argue with those folks, you know? I wouldn't argue with those folks either, but you have to address the fact that there are people that have gone through transition surgery and said, I wish to God that I never did this. There's a lot of those people too. So if you're looking for anecdotal evidence and you want to be objective, you kind of have to look at both sides of it. I'm sure we can find the anecdotes. I'm very curious, and this is what I go consult my friend or my recent interview subject, Tana Hills, work on this to see how many, see how many are in each group, right? Which sets of these folks are the outliers? I think the folks that you're talking about are probably the outliers, but I can't, you know, confirm that. All surgeries have potential costs. However, according to a Swedish study of 324 patients, three, 41% of whom were born female surgery was associated with considerably higher risk for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. So that's people who got the surgery. I am curious. Wait, 3.41% of them. I mean, the devil of this is in the details, right? Because how much is the higher risk? What does it mean 3.1% of who were born female? Well, some of them were born female and the other ones were born male. The males that transitioned to females is what it's saying. It's only saying a small percentage of them were born female that transitioned to male, but the larger percentage was males who transitioned to female and that the surgery that they received was associated with considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. That's not healing them. That's saying that having that surgery is associated with higher risk for mortality, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric morbidity. But it also says above, following surgery, patients report lower gender dysphoria and improved sexual relationships. Right, so we're talking about- Before they kill themselves, everything's awesome? Well, this isn't saying that people are killing themselves. You know, you're looking for something that confirms a previously established opinion and as are you. I mean, we're looking at this and we should be- I'm just looking at this. We should always be careful of drawing too much from a single study and look at it widely. But what was the point I was about to make? It fled my head. I'm sort of at the- Oh, here's what it was. Surgery, another thing I know from speaking with trans folks is that surgery is overemphasized, right? And that surgery for those folks is not the- We as sort of straits as people tend to put too much emphasis on like, oh, did you get the surgery yet or not? And really it's more about what are you living as and what sort of set of hormones do you have, right? But I would really- I've sort of reached the limit of my facility with this topic. I really want to shout out videos made by a friend of mine. Her videos are called ContraPoints. Her name's Natalie Wynn and she does these- She's a former philosopher for that. She's a former philosophy PhD and she does these incredibly funny videos about- It's not just about transitions, she's about all types of things. She had a really great one about comedy recently. But she really breaks down like a lot of these, a lot of misconceptions, right? And has really changed- Every time I watch one of her videos, I'm like learning new things and like new ideas are like pop, pop, pop in my head, you know? And I think you should check them out and- You might enjoy talking to her on the show. She's like a really fascinating person. ContraPoints. It's an incredibly complex subject. It really is. It really is. I've had Buck Angel on the podcast before who transitioned from female to male, which is also a different and interesting thing. And he said that his whole life just felt like he was a boy and he didn't understand why he didn't have a penis. He didn't understand like- It didn't make sense. And then once he transitioned to being a male, then he felt complete. I don't deny that. My entire concern is that you're making decisions for children. And this is a completely new thing with no historical precedent. We've never done this before. There's not like a history of hundreds of years of hormone blockers being used on young children and whether or not that is healthy and promotes a positive life. I feel like if a child thinks they're a girl, let them live as a girl. But you don't have to hormonally engage with their body with chemicals. It just seems crazy. It seems ill-advised. It seems like this movement of acceptance and progressive thinking in many ways is a fantastic thing. It's a fantastic movement. But this seems to me to be a leap and that you're making this leap to confirm your ideology and to confirm that you're 100% cool with trans people and you're 100% cool and you're going to recognize this child is trans. But you're doing something, you're doing something to this child's body that you can't turn around. And if this child decides at whatever age we decide that you can make rational decisions to transition as trans, let them fully develop first. Let them be a person. Let them make these decisions. If you want to identify as a woman and you want to keep your penis, that should be fine too. There's nothing wrong with that. If you want to keep a functional penis, you want to identify as a woman and not even take hormones. Who cares? Do that. But when you're stepping in to a developing baby that's only been alive for six years and you're shooting chemicals into its body to change the way it develops, show me the research. Show me the decades of peer-reviewed studies on one of the most important things that we know of, the development of a human being where you're going to hormonally interact with their body in some sort of a random Dr. Frankenstein sort of way. What evidence do we know? What evidence do we have that this is a powerful, absolute, intelligent, smart way to handle a child's life over the long term? When these kids grow to be 60, as opposed to kids who don't get the hormone shots when they're six, these people are 15% more happy. There's nothing like that. But yet people are jumping into it because it seems like the thing to do, because it seems like the tide of society is moving in that direction. Well, I don't jump into it for that reason. I do think that when we're talking about an issue that affects those people, the first thing we should do is listen to those people. Listen to the children. Listen to the children and listen to the adults who said, I used to be that child. But they are not that child. To you said, look, everyone's different. So for them to say, I was that child, that's nonsense. You were a similar child in a similar situation. You were not that child. No, they're not literally saying they're that child. But they don't know how that child is feeling. They don't know how much that child is being influenced by its environment. They don't know how much their thoughts and their expressions are being encouraged by their parents. They don't know that child. So my point is, when you and I are talking about this right now, we're speaking pretty hypothetically. We're talking about a child that is not in the room that we don't have. We're talking about a fictional child. So what we really care about are the actual people. And when we talk to the actual trans folks and talk to, say, hey, what do you think? How do you feel? And include them in the conversation. I think we have a different conversation about it. We do have a different conversation, but we also have a different conversation. We talk to people that have regret from transition surgery, because there's a lot of those. Sure, but we don't have either of those folks in the room. Right, but we have to acknowledge that they're real as well. Yeah, I'm not dismissing that those people are real. Right, but when we say, if you talk to trans folks, you get this impression. That's not necessarily true. You get a wide range of impressions. I wasn't talking about specifically the impression that it... I wasn't saying we should reason from anecdotal evidence. I'm saying that, look, the last conversation I had with a person about this was a trans military veteran who is a researcher who wrote a book on these issues. Right, comprehensively looked at the research and told me that the research shows that the evidence that you're asking for exists, maybe not on a 30-year timeline, but there have been studies of this and here's what we know about them. About children transition? Yeah, I mean, that is my understanding. I have not looked at the research myself. I have not done this topic on my show. I don't think this research shows the positive benefits of children transitioning. I don't think that exists. Well, we can't solve that in this conversation right here. My point is, look, I'm not going to go out on a limb and tell you more than I can say off the top of my head, because I'm not an expert on the subject. This is something that, if this were something we had done on our show and I had dived into the research more, I could tell you more that I know it exists, but I can tell you what I have been told exists by people who have made it their business to know. That would be my next step in the conversation. What I'm saying is, including those folks in this conversation is a really critical part of it for me. It's a conversation the world needs to have, for sure. Yeah, and I think it's one that we will have. Again, just to bring it back to athletics, I think that the undeniable existence of trans children to teenagers to adults who want to compete and who make a compelling case that they should be able to compete is going to be something that we're going to have to grapple with. I don't think there's going to be easy answers to it. Yeah, we're grappling with it right now. I think the legitimate solution is a trans league or a trans division, to have a male division, a female division, and a trans division. If you want to compete athletically, that's fair to me. That makes sense. Well, I hope that there's, say you've got the Paralympics, and the Paralympics is really like it's divided. Do you know how they do it? Sure. Where they do all the different levels for you've got this much amputated or you're this mobile and you can compete in this way. So that's really great to make a way that those folks can compete on a level as a playing field as we can be given the manifold variations in human bodies. But the fact that Oscar Pistorius, which by the way, which should bring up again, he killed his girlfriend, which is a very weird part of the story. And he said he thought she was a robber. Completely bizarre. But the fact that he was able to compete in the Olympics, not just in the Paralympics, I think such a wonderful thing. And so I would hope that whatever organization we come up with allows for humans and all their variations to compete in the main league as well. I disagree. Because that's fair as possible. If they come up with bionic legs, like Steve Austin from the $6 million man, there's some people out there that'll cut their fucking legs off to run faster. And that's real. There are people that want to win so bad they would cut the bottom of their legs off to get bionic prosthesis. Really? For sure. 100%. Would you? No, I wouldn't. But I'm not crazy. Look, there's people that amputate their hands just because they are... Do you know that people have that feeling that they're supposed to be disabled? Yes. So they amputate their hands? Yes. There's people with all sorts of psychological disorders, but the need to win is so insanely strong in some people. And if they found out that, hey, man, who gives a fuck about your feet and your calves, man? They're going to look just like feet and calves, except they allow you to run 45 miles an hour. They don't think people would do it. Isn't that a little similar to the argument where people say, oh, trans bathrooms, it's just so men are just going to lie about it so they can go in the bathroom and peep at women. And then when you actually expand that, right? And you're like, hold on a second. You're telling me a dude is going to tell the entire world, I am not a man, I'm a woman. They're going to start dressing differently. They're going to take hormones. They're going to live with the stigma, right? They're going to... One of the most stigmatized type of people you can be in America today as a trans person. They're going to live with that stigma. They're going to change their whole lives and they're going to do all of that just so they can peep at women in the bathroom. Well, that doesn't make any sense. Highly unlikely. It doesn't make any sense, but it also, that's not entirely what could happen. What also could happen is you could get some creep who dresses up like a woman and goes to the male, to the woman's bathroom. You can get that. I mean, I'm all for trans people. Listen, but you can have it now. But if you have a bathroom that allows trans people and you get some creep who says, I'm just going to pretend to be trans. If you don't think that's real, then you're crazy. Of course people do that. Of course there's... And people have been arrested. There's not a... No, no, there is. There's people who have been arrested, men who were sex offenders who dressed up as women and went into the women's room and harassed women. There's very many arrests, but it's not because... But at least they aren't trans people. But here's the thing, they're not trans people. They're people that are taking advantage of a loophole and they're creeps. And they probably wanted to go into the female bathroom anyway, but they just couldn't do it before. And now that there's trans-exclusive bathrooms, some creeps have been arrested doing that. They're not trans people. The real problem is the creeps. The real problem is not the trans people using the women's room. They should of course be able to use the women's room. But the creeps can go like, you don't need a law for it. Like, so if they're not trans people, right, they are not supposed to be in the bathroom, right? Right, they're pretending to be trans people. And this is what people were worried about. They have arrested people doing that. But so they could also do that even if it was not a gender-inclusive bathroom, right? Sure, they could. Because they would be breaking the rules of the bathroom in exactly the same way. But everybody would know that they're a man in a dress versus them being trans. See, if you see a trans person, often demstrans people look very masculine. There's no need, if you're just going to pretend to be trans, there's no need to hide. Well, we have to ask ourselves is if the hypothetical or if the extremely, extremely rare situation that you're discussing, right, is so horrifying to us, and such a big problem that it's worth disenfranchising millions of people from the ability to simply go to the bathroom when they need to, you know? If that extreme edge case or hypothetical case, right, are we really going to hurt all of these actual people who actually exist and say, I just need to goddamn go to the bathroom, you know, in a place that is, you know, safe for me, right? And I don't think it is, you know? Like, we can talk about that one edge case all day long, you know, but the end of the day. There's been more than one case, but I think, here's the question. What are there more of? Are there more trans people or are there more sexual predators? A hundred percent more trans people than sexual predators who are specifically going to put on a dress and in order to go into a bathroom specifically. Yeah, I would agree with that. A hundred percent there's more trans people. Yeah, I would agree with that. Like by a factor of a million. Well, I don't know about a factor of a million. I mean, how many people are trans? What's the numbers on that? You know, I don't know, but I would consult my friend Bryn's book to find out because I'm sure it's in, I guess she wrote a book that breaks down all these statistics. This is such a- This is everything you need to know about trans. Mind field of a subject, you know, as soon as you start bringing this shit up, people go crazy. Because it's complicated and people, they dig their heels in the ground on both sides, you know? And you know, I tried to have, I'm happy we were able to have a conversation about it. I try to have a conversation that's based on, you know, what I try not to say more than I think I can say with surety. But my basic principle is, man, I just want to defer to the humanity of the people that I'm talking about. You know what I mean? And rather than say, oh, well, here's my idea. Here's my concern. What about the, what if a space alien were to come down to XYZ? You know what I mean? Rather than try to come up with thought experiments about it, you know? It's like, hey, there's some people in America, they're making a polite request. Can we use the bathroom, please? Go ahead. You know, that's what I default to. Right? We gotta just kill the perverts. That's the problem. You kill the perverts and you don't have any issues. I think there's a way with sports again, right? I genuinely think, hey, my default is, I understand this problem. I understand you're going to have female athletes who say, hey, wait a second, is this fair? Right? I think we can go forward with good faith and find a way, let's find a model that works for everybody. You know, I think we can do it in a way that respects the humanity of the trans athletes and the cis athletes. I think that we can do that. And that's, that'll always be my. I think it's easy to say as an outsider, if you're a female athlete that's being forced to compete with trans women who used to be men for most of their lives, I think you'd have a different opinion. Because I think they have a distinct physiological advantage that's been expressed many times. I mean, there's a lot of records have been broken by trans women who are now weightlifters. And there's that one who's the fucking dirt biker, who's was a professional dirt bike, professional rider before as a man, and then transitioned over to a woman is just dominating these things. It's just, I don't necessarily think it's fair. I think just like it's not fair for a man to compete as a woman, I don't think that all those disadvantages or those advantages rather go away when you transition, especially in a short time period, I just don't think they do. And I don't think there's any evidence it shows they do. There's a diminishing amount, but how much so? And in fact, there's a doctor, a board certified endocrinologist, Dr. Ramona Krotzic, I think is her name, we did a whole article on this about fighters, about male fighters, transitioning to becoming female and competing as female, which has happened. And they're saying that not only does the estrogen therapy, it actually preserves bone density, doesn't just turn them into a woman, or turn them into female, so their hormonal profile is similar to females, but also preserves their masculine bone density. Because one of the reasons why women lose bone density as they get older is a lack of estrogen. That's part of the reason why osteoporosis kicks in. That stops it in its tracks when you're injecting female hormones into a male's frame. So they maintain this male bone density. Now, there's also arguments that African American female bone density is in many cases similar to white European male bone density. So that's the argument about the outliers and about whether or not it's a level playing field, because it most certainly is not. Yeah. I mean, so that's where I get back to the idea that, look, could someone show that a athlete who, a trans athlete who wants to compete is going to have a physiological advantage because of their history of transition, right? Could that be the case sometimes? Probably so. I'm not going to argue that, well, how about this? Because I actually don't want to know one way or the other, because I have not looked at any research on this, so I don't want to make any claim. So let's just grant that for the sake of this thought experiment, right? So that being said, let's compare that against every single other advantage that every other competitor could have. Socioeconomic advantage, right? Country of origin. Whether or not they live in Denver or if they live below sea level, like all those different things, right? Is it humane to draw a line around that one unearned advantage, right? Against all those other unearned advantages, you know? At what point does our fantasy of having a level, of having a true level playing field end up hurting people, you know? End up excluding people. And that's the conversation that I think we could have. you