Hey everybody, Tank we're debating puberty blockers on trial and we are starting right now. With Vadim's opening statement, thanks so much for being with us, Vadim. The floor is all yours. Hey everybody, how's it going? My name is Vadim, also known as Hey, it's Vadim, that's my channel. And in case you forget, it happens to be on my shirt written in Battlestar Galactica font. So just always refer to that if there's a problem. So yeah, I just want to say it's truly a pleasure and a sure sensation to be here today. I want to thank James for hosting this. Our viewers, you're looking fantastic. What you're doing with your hair is just, it's really working for you. And yes, I am, in fact, flirting with every single one of you right now. I'd like to thank my cohort, Synth, and of course our opponents, CJ, and especially Mr. Rich Evans. I'm a huge red letter media fan, by the way. And I'm just really excited that you're here. So anyhow, I do have to say it is slightly frustrating, though, that this topic needs to be debated at this point, given the wealth of data, and the overwhelming number of major medical bodies that are relevant experts within this field, whom all agree that trans therapies for children, including puberty blockers, are safe, lower things like depression, potentiality for self-harm, suicidal ideation, and of course, suicide itself. And have been shown in numerous reliable studies to improve mental health and general well-being. But we're here regardless. Anyhow, we'll get into more benefits than just that in a while, but I'd like to start by citing a 2020 study from the journal Pediatrics, which is, you can Google it, literally the fourth most cited Pediatrics journal, having one of the most significant impact factors of any journal of its kind, basically above the most trusted and respective, I think it's something like 120 pediatric journals. So the study is titled, Pubertyle Suppression for Transgender Youth and Risk of Suicidal Ideation. Again, this is from 2020, which concluded, quote, those who received treatment with pubertal suppression, when compared with those who wanted pubertal suppression, but did not receive it, had lower odds of lifetime suicidal ideation, and quote, there is a significant inverse association between treatment with pubertal suppression during adolescence and lifetime suicidal ideation among transgender adults whoever wanted this treatment. These results align with past literature, also important, suggesting that pubertal suppression for transgender adolescents who want this treatment is associated with favorable mental health outcomes. And now this brings me to claims that Rob Noor, who I'm just receiving word is not, in fact, Richard Evans and apologies. Anyhow, I did watch a previous debate you had on this very topic. And I want to bring up just a couple of things that you happen to say in that debate. For one, you said the greatest scientific bodies in the world have said that we should not implement these therapies. You made similar statements several times. Well, I have a dear, endless list of again, the most significant and relevant scientific, scientific medical experts, all of whom issued statements in strident support of puberty blockers as a beneficial and potentially life saving therapy for those who need it, which I'd be happy to forward you by the way. I won't go through all of them right now, but some of them include the American Medical Association representing over 240,000 members, the American Academy of Family Physicians, 137,000, the American Osteopathic Association, 145,000, American Psychological Association, 122,000, the largest within the US, the Endocrine Society, 18,000, which may not seem large in comparison to the others, but it's actually the world's oldest, largest and most active organization devoted to research on hormones and clinical practice of endocrinology. So that's very important. Again, world's largest. And of course, lastly, the World Medical Association, a conglomeration of 147 professional medical associates or rather associations representing both the heads of each of the 147 associations, which span the globe, by the way, and also represent collectively well over 10 million doctors worldwide. Again, I could go on, but we'd be here for a very long time. You simply are, I'm sorry, but flat out incorrect in your assertion that there is not a robust support among medical bodies like these. And although there are sources whom dispute massive groups such as this in general, they tend to be a micro minority in comparison to those who support this therapy. And when they draw on studies, they think make their case. They often tend to be using extremely outdated and data that is methodologically flawed in order to support their case. So we'll get into those topics more, but also in your debate, Rob, you massively overplayed the side effects of puberty blockers through the overwhelming majority of your debate, which, yes, do exist, but they are to be expected with any medication. Although you did, interestingly enough, mention briefly on your own accord at one point that these are, well, I'm just going to quote, and the time stamp for this is 2430, by the way, quote, and there were negative consequences, albeit slight, such as problems with bone density, pituitary problems, and things like that. That's an interesting brief admittance there. And I was very much in stark contrast to the rest of your debate where you continually asserted these complications were very serious. But I'm glad that you did briefly concede that point. These are very minor side effects. And I'd also like to add that these side effects absolutely pale in comparison to their benefits, especially when keeping in mind the lack of severity of the side effects themselves. And that's not so much my opinion, as it is the prevailing answer medical experts in this field will give in reference to the question of side effects of puberty blockers. Also, Rob, within that debate, you cited as proof that supposedly superior authorities have significant problems with puberty blockers. You said that these were the superior authorities. You said this in a number of ways a number of times. To do this, you only cited two things. One, the recent ruling in England to restrict puberty blockers to children under 16. Now, this was based on the carabell ruling, which I do hope we get a chance to discuss because it was both a highly dubious ruling and we can make that case quite easily, I think. And yeah, for a whole number of reasons. And in addition to that, you cited one, just one. I repeat, one more time, only one clinic in Sweden that decided to discontinue the use of puberty blockers. Actually, I believe they restricted it to the age of 16, which, by the way, they cited as one of their primary reasons for doing so the very same super duper dubious carabell case ruling. I have to admit that this is just one of the most blatant examples of cherry picking and transforming sources into something that they're just not that I've ever seen. So congrats for that. It's a dubious accomplishment, but I do admire the brazen lack of forethought and or honesty there. You really went for it. So thumbs up.  And statements such as this, tell me that you may have close to no grasp of this topic whatsoever, because that's just light years from being true. I mean, it's just a cosmic hunk of air.  That's what I mean by it. They're taken for a relatively short period of time. The effects are, of course, reversible should the individual decide to discontinue them. And puberty resumes as it would have otherwise. Children, usually teens are given an important doorway of time to decide if they want to go on further with their therapies in their late teens or adulthood. They're not stuck with them forever. Also, you discussed the lack of long term longitudinal studies. And yes, of course, we can always use more of those. Those are always great, regardless of the medication or how long they've been around. But you failed to mention that they have in fact been prescribed since the 1970s, starting in the Netherlands. Now it's true. It not nearly as wide a scale as they are now, but they've been around since then for this youth. But more importantly, you didn't mention the decades of continued use for girls with precocious puberty. I believe we're going on over 30 years for that now. It's still used to this day after, again, over 30 years. And it's also been used for decades for things like endometriosis and prostate cancer at adults. And if the side effects were as pronounced as you made it sound through most of that debate, well, that just wouldn't be the case. They wouldn't be prescribed for all these reasons. In closing, I would like to remind our audience of the short list from a much longer list of authorities I cited earlier that enthusiastically recommend these therapies. And I emphasize this because this is how evidence-based data, I mean, evidence-based slash data-based medicine is done. We look at not just the wealth of data, but we look at to the largest and most respected bodies of professionals to interpret that data and make suggestions accordingly. That's just how good medicine works. And so when one disputes this overwhelming number of authorities, they're kind of straying into denialism. The data does indeed tell us to put it bluntly if we administer things like puberty blockers to recipients when they are determined to be necessary for a patient, which, by the way, is just about always includes a conglomeration of their doctors, pediatricians, endocrinologists, psychiatrists, parents, and the child. And I say this because often people say that the child is making the decision alone as just a lot of lunatics and know nothings will contend that. No, that's not the case. And that's typically after numerous appointments over the course of years. So all what I'm saying is that it does have, among many other benefits, the potential and typically does lower the chance of self-harm and suicide to Rob and CJ and to all who are on the fence on this topic. Look, I know at the end of the day, you care about kids. We all do. That's why we're here having this conversation. So I hope that we can reach even just a handful of you and convince the simple truth, which is to be blunt, these therapies save lives. The less access that we have to puberty blockers to those who need them, that's just going to get us more suicides, more dead kids. It's really as simple as that. And with that, I can see my time. All right. So I know that me and Vadim have that sort of sort of eight minute opening statement that we shared. I want to throw out just a few things here and there that I think are important to note. Rob and CJ, I've seen a couple of debates with you guys in the past. I know Rob, you've actively fought against, debated against fascist, even on the side of leftist at times. I know you're a good person. I know at the end of the day that the reason that you think the things you do is because you think those are going to save kids' lives. I don't think you're bad people. I think you just made a mistake and hopefully going over this data can convince you too to change your minds. But at the end of the day, I think that we both have a shared goal here and hopefully we can find common ground over to you too. Yeah, I echo that statement, by the way. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for those opening statements. And folks, if it's your first time here at Modern Aid Debate, want to let you know we are a neutral platform hosting debates on science, religion and politics. And we hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you are from. We are glad you are here. And so with that, we're going to kick it over to Rob and CJ for their openings as well. Thanks, gentlemen. The floor is yours. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone for being here. CJ, thanks for being my partner. Vadim, thanks for debating us. And James, thanks for hosting us. I really appreciate it. Thanks everyone for watching as well. It's nice to see that I have fans out there that are watching my videos. So that's great. Maybe now you could get the full fledged experience where you get to debate me yourself. So it should be good. So let's start with the framework for how we should decide this debate. Children are not adults. They do not have the ability to make decisions that adults do. They don't have the ability to consent to things. And so our framework should be that we do not test on children. We only prescribe medication to children if it is necessary. And we know it is safe. We don't, if there's any doubt, we don't prescribe it if there's doubt. The literature and the science on this and long studies of long-term effects and things like that just do not exist. And so we should not be testing on children, not knowing what these long-term side effects will be. Now let me take a brief moment to step aside. I appreciate that both of my opponents said that they don't think that CJ or me are bad people. Trans issues are difficult to talk about. I know it's an important issue to many people. People that identify as trans, there's certainly a lot of anecdotal and data evidence that shows that it could be very difficult. There could be people treating you like garbage and things like that. I don't embrace anything like that. I think that just because I have disagreements or we have disagreements on some of the issues surrounding the community, anyone who purposely targets members of this community to be bigoted or to, you know, try to talk at their offense or anything like that is just in the wrong. So I'm not saying any of this because I specifically want to go against the trans community. I am worried about children. That is what I'm worried about. Given the framework that I outlined, we could see that there are significant medical bodies that have done the best studies on this that show they do not have confidence that the research that's been done is significant enough to suggest that it is necessary to give these puberty blockers to trans children or to suggest that there are not harmful side effects of this. Now I'll talk to some of what Vadim said. I guess that's as good of way to open as any. So the first thing is notice that Vadim only cites one study there. And that study is called the pubertal, pubertal suppression for transgender youth and risk of suicidal ideation, right, which was in the journal pediatrics. Everything else he says is, hey, a bunch of experts say it's cool, but he's not citing studies or anything like that. This is the only study he suggested. Now, if you read into this study, which I've done, I've read this study. It is not a study at all. It is a survey. They surveyed over 20,000 trans people and just asked them questions. Of those 20 something thousand trans people, about 80 said, yeah, I took puberty blockers when I was a child and it made me feel good. That's it. That's the evidence that he cited. It's not longitudinal studies. It's not studies that actually had medical professionals looking at people, taking note of when they had puberty blockers, testing them, having control groups and things like that. No, it's just a survey. They can't even verify through this survey that the people that responded that they had puberty blockers or suppressors actually did. It's literally just taking people that they surveyed online, or I don't know if it was online, but people that they surveyed at their word. That's it. That's the evidence of the end. The rest of the evidence is just saying, and this is something that I see that I think we're making a problem in this country, is just saying, well, trust the experts. I trust science. I don't just implicitly trust scientists. If scientists have a reason for something, then show the studies. Just because they have both a financial and a political incentive to push a certain thing, doesn't mean that we should take their word at face value without studies that back up their claims. We can see in this country, we have an opioid epidemic that was largely spurred on by doctors that had a financial incentive to prescribe it. We see the over prescription of psychological or psychotropic medication for children for things like ADD and other psychiatric medications. So the idea that a bunch of prestigious organizations say, oh, trust us. It's cool without being able to provide the science behind it shows that it's dubious. And we shouldn't just trust them because of supposedly their appeal to authority. What I did site was from the National Health Institute of the National Health Service of the UK. So we're talking about the Carribell case. That's true. We could talk about the Carribell case. Carribell was someone who transitioned who felt that it was not properly given the warnings of the things that could happen with the transition and soon as a result, the NHS commissioned a study that was carried out. Now we in the United States, particularly the left, like to talk about how the National Health Service of Britain, that's what we should model our health service up. That's a health service that cares about their people. So they did an investigation and in that investigation, they looked at the nine best studies that they were able to find. Those studies, they came to the following conclusion, which I'll read a little him saying that this was just based on a court case is not true. The court case was based on significant research done for over a year by the NHS using nine studies. Here's their conclusion. The results of the studies that reported impact on critical outcomes of gender dysphoria and mental health, depression, anger and anxiety, and the important outcomes of body image and psychological impact in children and adolescents with gender dysphoria are quote, very low certainty using modified grade. They suggest little change with hormone analogues back from baseline to follow up. Studies have found the difference in the outcome could represent changes. However, let me see, I'll just skip to the however, as the studies all lack reasonable controls, not receiving hormone blocker analogues, the natural history of the outcomes measured in the studies is not known. And any positive changes could be a regression to the mean. No cost effective evidence was found to determine whether or not hormone blocker analogues are cost effective for children. Now, what they mean by cost effective is this. Excuse me. There's a cost benefit to everything we do. So for example, if you have cancer, you take chemo. There's risks to chemo. Chemo will do negative things to your body. But you say that the benefit outweighs the cost. So when they're talking about this, cost effectiveness, that's what they're talking about. They're saying the NHS of Britain, after looking at all of these studies, not surveys like Vadim gave you, but actually looking at the studies said, we have no certainty in these studies. They don't have any control groups. They're all very limited. We don't have long term studies. And so they looked at these studies and concluded that we as medical professionals cannot in good faith say that children should be taking these medications that they should be prescribed. In fact, the court ruled that it would be tantamount to testing on children because it would be like if a new drug came out. And instead of doing the necessary things to make sure that there were studies showing that this was safe, you instead just gave that drug to children who aren't able to consent whatsoever. So this is the huge problem. Similar studies Vadim says, oh, you mentioned one hospital in Sweden, but how did Sweden come to that conclusion? According to the Swedish Agency for Health Technological Assessment in the review called Gender Dysphoria in Children and Added Lessons and Inventory of Literature, here are the conclusions they found. Quote, we have not found any scientific studies which explains the increase in incidents in children and adolescents who seek health care because gender dysphoria. We have not found any studies on changes in prevalence of gender dysphoria over calendar time. There are few studies on gender affirming study in general in children and adolescents and only a single study on gender affirming genital surgery. Studies on long term effects of gender affirming treatment in children and adolescents are few, especially for the groups that have appeared. The scientific activity remains high. Almost all identified studies are observational, some with controls and some with evaluation before and after gender treatment. No relevant randomized control trials in children and adolescents were found. We are not found any composed national information from Sweden on and a bunch of things. So in other words, what they're saying here is there are no significant studies. There are none. There are observations.  But I challenge and I'm here to learn. I welcome Synth and Vadim showing me the longitudinal studies that show that this is effective. A couple other things that we'll get to. He said that when I talked about the problems, there are significant problems that you can have, particularly with the most commonly prescribed medication that's used, which is called Luprin. We have medical professionals that said and never in a million years would they recommend this to someone under the age of 21. However, I'm honest when I debate and that same Institute from the National Health Survey said that they also found the studies on the dangers on bone density and things like that from puberty blockers also were low certainty. So Vadim is calling me out as if I'm making some sort of mistake. No, I'm just being honest. The best research that's gone into this says that both the research is to the positive nature of puberty blockers and to the negative nature of puberty blockers are low certainty. Therefore, given the framework that we should not be testing on children in mass, we should refrain from giving these medications until these sorts of studies exist. He says the effects are reversible, but that's not true. We'll talk about the physiological effects, but more importantly are the psychological effects. And this gets to where Vadim says, I don't understand what I'm talking about because I say most children that get on puberty blockers stay on them. What I mean is they stay with the treatment.  And so this is something that's cited all the time to the efficacy of puberty blockers. They say, ah, puberty blockers are good because most people that get on them continue with the transition. Well, we can see that 73 to 95 percent of children that have signs of being transgender grow out of it without any medical intervention. And so there is undoubtedly a psychological impact that many children have been prescribed this medication that otherwise would have transitioned back to their sex assigned at birth, but did not do so because of the long term effect of these puberty blockers, which had a psychological impact on them. In addition to physiological impacts that we can see as well. He says the puberty blockers have been around for decades. Yes, but that's different prescribing. For example, we have chemotherapy, as I already said. We don't prescribe chemo for things other than cancer. Yes, there are situations where puberty blockers, for example, there's situations with gynecological care and adults, people that were experiencing puberty too fast and things like that, where it may make sense and there's literature and testing that went into that. That doesn't mean we should prescribe these medications with their real and verified side effects for new things. The last thing I'll say is, yeah, so I think that the important thing to remember here is this. Let's get into the studies. Everyone seems to be want to be interested in this. So let's get into the studies and see what happens. We even have, there was something originally called the Dutch protocol that was, this was kind of the first in the 2000s kind of path that we use to be able to determine how we should treat trans people in the medical fields. One of the founders of that protocol is puzzled that we see so many trans people increasing, particularly in adolescents. And he suggests, as we could get to from his comments, that maybe we ought to hold back on giving these puberty blockers because it seems like this is a cause celeb. And all of a sudden a bunch of people are, it's popular for parents to say, hey, my kids trans and to convince kids to be trans through gender affirming therapy and things like that. And they could actually be having a lot of problems with that sort of stuff. I can move on. You got it. I was going to say we're about right where we were with for synth and Vadim's opening. And so just to keep it relatively balanced, in case CJ had any opening points that he wanted to quick make, otherwise, CJ, if you want to do the same that synth did in terms of forfeiting time to go into the open conversation, that works too. Yeah, I'll just make a real, a couple of quick points just because I think that most of my points will be able to make me open conversation. Namely that I think that this kind of a question is, you know, more important than just this particular question. I think in other words, this is one of those things that ends up having a greater impact than just simply the question of puberty blockers for trans kids. And I think that that impact is immensely negative for society as a whole. I hope to get into some of the philosophical justifications that I have for that. But nonetheless, that's my main thing is that I think that there is a lot of issues that while they may not seem related at first, certainly do seem related upon a little bit of examination on top of course related issues, but we'll get to that back and forth later. But just as you know, some more philosophical points, I think that need to be addressed for sure. You got it. So we will move into the open conversation, folks want to let you know, if it's your first time here, or maybe it's your 500th time here, who knows if you haven't yet, folks, hit that subscribe button as we have many more juicy debates coming up that you don't want to miss. For example, this Friday, Tom Jump and Dr. Ben Burgess will be debating capitalism versus socialism. You don't want to miss it. So do hit that subscribe button and that notification bell as well. With that, we will jump into open conversation. Thank you all. Four of you gentlemen, the floor is all yours. Yeah, all right. So you mentioned a couple of things in your opening, Rob, that I kind of want to touch on before we get into that. I know in your debate with, I think her name was Amy, you gave this argument in which you said, how could you know that you want to go through puberty if you've never experienced it? Do you still hold to that argument or do you think that was maybe poorly worded? The argument, it's slightly poorly worded. If you don't mind me clarify, the argument that I'm making is if we use the WPATH, which is kind of the gold standard in transgender health care, even if it means that 70 to 95% of children that go through transgender issues grow out with. Could you bring it up and maybe read from it what you're talking about? Sure, I'll link it and I'll read. Let me find it. Here's the link. Would you like me to link that just in our Zoom chat? Yeah, you could go ahead and do that. Yeah, no problem. And you're going to go down to, there it's in the chat, and you could go down to page. It's page 17 on the scroll, but on the actual document, it's page 11. So I'll read here. Gender dysphoria during childhood does not inevitably continue into adulthood. Rather, in follow-up studies of pre-puberty children, mainly boys, who were referred to the clinics for assessment of gender dysphoria, the dysphoria persisted into adulthood for only 6 to 23% of children. So given that to answer since question.  Hold on. Yes. Can we continue forward actually and read the other things here? Yeah, sure. Boys in these studies were most likely to identify as gay in adulthood than as transgender. Newer studies also including girls show a 12 to 27 persistent rate of gender dysphoria into adulthood. And then, in contrast, the persistence of gender dysphoria into adulthood appears to be much higher for adolescents. No formal prospective studies exist. However, in a follow-up study of 70 adolescents who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria and given puberty-surprising hormones all continued with actual sex reassignment, all of them. So that's exactly my argument. Yeah, I'd like to say very quickly, I mean, it's just interesting that because we were both familiar with this and we, I mean, I think we both find it interesting that your caught-off point was right there because it says in contrast and literally for pages, it goes on to why these therapies are a good idea. It's merely starting out by saying like, look, there's some studies to the contrary. And as a matter of fact, we can bring up some of these studies. Some of these studies are often cited by people who oppose transcare. And these are studies with awful methodology. In some cases, I mean, I think synth can probably elaborate on why they're bad. But first of all, a lot of them, they were studying people who weren't necessarily trans to begin with, who were merely gender non-conforming. In a lot of these cases, these were studies where when an individual no longer showed up to that particular gender clinic, they just said, okay, well, they've desisted. It's terrible methodology. And I mean, I could say more about it, but I want to hand it over to Synth, because I imagine he is... Well, in fairness, I was asking a question, which I need to respond to. I'm not cutting off there for a specific reason. In fact, I'm literally going to say the next point, the incontrast point. First off, the reason I use WPATH is you should try to steal man, your opponent's argument. So I could show you a litany of links, for example, from people that are critical of purity blockers that say these sorts of statistics. But I went to the actual group that I think that trans advocates would be most likely to believe. So it's funny to now hear, oh, well, WPATH, we can't trust their evidence because the studies they come from are dubious. These are dubious studies that WPATH is... So the issue, Rob, is it's a matter of like, I do agree that using WPATH is a decent source, right? But the issue is you are citing the things which they almost immediately refute, as though this is evidence in favor. I have to say very quickly, I have to say very quickly talking and me barely getting to respond. I just want to inject one sentence, which is, if that's your idea of a steal man, then I truly hate to see your idea of a straw man. It's just very far from anything I know of. Okay, cool. Anyway, that's a great point. So what we can see is... We, CJ, had a point. I do want to just be sure that CJ gets a chance to get into the debate to some extent. Let's get them both to reply however they'd like. Okay, go for it, Rob, and CJ. Go ahead, CJ, if you want. Well, I just wanted to say quickly, it doesn't seem to me like the article there is refuting Rob's point. It sounds to me like it's exactly making Rob's point. When there's not a puberty blocker used, at most you have, what would that be? 77% of people leaving or 23% of people remaining and 6% of people at least remaining, right? That's huge. And then when you start adding puberty blockers, it all of a sudden shoots from 23 at the most to 100. That is really weird, right? And that's exactly the point. That's exactly the point. What is the green study in particular? Why does that show that there's the introduction of puberty blockers is going to change the rate of desistence? Again, if I could finish my point. So, yeah, CJ is making exactly my point, right?  The question you asked me, you said, well, what do I mean that, you know, people wouldn't have an incentive to go back? Well, that's exactly what I mean, right? So what we see is and make no mistake about it, we could quibble about the definition of children versus adolescents. But in the same WPATH literature, it talks about how we start this at Tanner one, which is as young as eight years old for girls when we could stop these puberty blockers. So it's certainly young children that they're talking about giving these puberty blockers to right. So am I ever going to get a chance to finish a point?  But just to be sure that they have plenty of time to respond because there are a number of different like moving pieces going on. Sure. Right. Right. So the point is, as CJ was saying, that we could see that overwhelmingly, there are a lot of children that grow out of gender dysphoria or the symptoms of gender dysphoria without any medical interventions. But as soon as we start prescribing puberty blockers, it's almost unanimous. And the Dean made fun of me in my opening statement for the saying, oh, he says that they never go back.  And so what we see is there are long term effects that you have the long term effect of giving many of these children who would have transitioned back without medical intervention. It seems to suggest that as soon as you give them puberty blockers, you're putting them on the path to gender reassignment surgery. Then how come we do not see those who take it for precocious puberty becoming transgender? We don't see that. We don't see that with anyone else who takes these drugs. And again, you would expect that if that was the outcome of taking this drug. That's not, no. Again, you're proving my point. It's because it's not just taking the drug. It's that if you took, for example, if you were experiencing onset puberty early and you took this drug, no one's telling you, oh, you're the wrong gender. You don't have doctors that are forced to have gender affirming therapy that are saying, actually, the problem is you think you're a woman, but in reality, you're a man. So if you're not told that and you don't go through puberty, you never have the impetus to say, maybe I am trans, but if you do have family and people saying that to you, and then you never go through puberty, then that's a reason that you would never go back to your sex assigned gender. I'd like to point out that we do know for a fact that with other, like when we start switching the ingredients and start talking about other things, like for example, being raised in cults or long term abusive relationships or something like that, what Rob's talking about is exactly the way it works. In fact, that's the whole concept of Stockholm syndrome, right? Is that when you have the ability to convince somebody over long periods of time, that obviously changes things. That changes their mental framework. That changes the way they're going to see the world. Okay. This is really loaded a way that you're both discussing this. You're talking about this as if these whole range of experts in the field are essentially brainwashing children. Like it's just really, there's certainly no evidence, reliable evidence that you can, like that is pure conjecture. You're really just pulling that out of your butts. I don't think that's true at all. Just to use some examples. For example, oppositional defiance disorder being something that exists. That's a clear example of people in the psychological field using whatever it is. I don't know why maybe it's a drug agenda thing. Maybe they actually are convinced that it's a real thing. Maybe it's some way to try and pacify rebellious children. But regardless, you have a perfect example here of people in the psychological field diagnosing something that just frankly does not exist. There's no such thing as oppositional defiance disorder. There absolutely isn't such thing as oppositional. No, there is not. That's the idea that rebellious children know why. The demon synth plenty of time. Thanks so much, both Rob and CJ. When we were talking about this, I'm talking about the opening of this WPATH thing. Did you point it out that this was actual? Yeah. Go for it. The two sections here, the latter of which seems to very strongly support our side, and the former of which is the one that Rob usually points to, is the former of which refers specifically to pre-puberty, I can't speak, pre-puberty children. In the case of pre-puberty children, those are not who you generally prescribe puberty blockers to because obviously the intent is to block puberty. You're not experiencing puberty doesn't make much sense to block it. You usually wait for children until they are experiencing the early signs of puberty. Sometimes as low as eight year old girls can do this, but they are not pre-puberty at that point. The ones you are citing don't actually prove your claim. That's not true. For example, if you look at who it cites right there, the WPATH, it talks about Drummond Bradley and Bedeli. If you go to that study, it says this study provided information in the natural history of 25 girls with gender disorder standardized assessment data and childhood, meaning age 8.88 years. It's basically nine year olds is the mean age. Again, if you look at the WPATH, it says that you could start giving at 10 or one, which is eight years old. Even in this study, secondly, let me just ask you flat out, and similar with the boys of that portion of it, I could read that if you want as well. Let me just ask you flat out, you and Cynthia Vadim. Do you think that there are a significant, let's just say this, do you think more than half of children that experience gender dysphoria or signs of gender dysphoria grow out of it without puberty blockers? More than half. I guess this depends on what point at which you begin the study. It depends on what age you do. The younger you get, the more likely you are to grow out of it, but puberty blockers are less likely to be given to you. Giving them at 10 or one would be relatively uncommon. The general thing to do is do it at 10 or two, once puberty has actually begun, not pre-puberty. And this would be adolescence at that point, which is all of those seem to what do you think the percentage of adolescence that experience gender dysphoria grow out of? The WPATH article admits there is no evidence on this. There's no studies. It's just like, it says there are no formal perspective studies. So there's no evidence. They do cite the evidence. They say, what's the study of 70 adolescents, which is survey data. I know you don't like that. I just carry pick the parts of the WPATH. I'm sorry. May I speak or do you want Rob to speak right now? Oh, I was going to say, just to be sure that Synth got to finish his point. I wasn't sure if you did, Synth. Yeah, I apologize, Synth. I have to hammer once again that the idea, the WPATH, is starting out with something that is canceling out the rest of... I mean, don't you think that they would recognize that they are not admitting here that the rest of what they go on for pages where they affirm care, they're not like saying that the first part cancels any of it out and your interpretation of it doesn't make it so. You keep on saying that you are steel manning all of this, but you are not. You are cherry picking and you are misinterpreting the spirit in which they put that in there. As I said, there are some very well-known studies that are just absolutely... The methodology in them are very poor, but they are recognizing them and they're saying like, hey, look, these studies do exist, but all this other information makes those studies kind of pale in comparison to everything else that we're saying afterward. That's really the thrust of the study. That's really what it has to say, and you're not characterizing it in the way in which its authors meant it to be taken. Okay, so this is a fundamental problem that I see with many people. They don't understand. They think that if you cite, even from an article that is pro, a position that you're anti, if you use that article to show why that position is erroneous, we have to agree with everything the article says. We're agreeing with the data that they've outlined at the beginning, and then I'm disagreeing with their conclusion, proving their own data or using their own data. Now, since back to your point, you say, oh, no, no, no, they do do these surveys. No, they don't. Again, look at what it says. The section where we have the actual studies are actual studies that show that children that have symptoms are being diagnosed with gender dysphoria actually grow out of a huge portion. I say they don't really have those commiserate studies when it comes to adolescence. You say, yes, they do, but let's look again what it says. It says, in contrast, the persistence of gender dysphoria into adulthood appears much higher for adolescents. No formal perspective study exists. However, in a follow-up study of 70 adolescents who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria and given puberty-suppressing hormones. So again, they're not saying there is no data, not even WPEP provides data that says, okay, adolescents that weren't giving medical interventions. Rob, the question you were asked earlier, that was about specifically that. Okay, go ahead. So what I'm saying is, so the point I'm trying to ask you is, can you at least give me that there's a reasonable significant amount of children and adolescents that would grow out of puberty, or would grow out of gender dysphoria if they're not given any medications? Can I at least get you to a reasonable amount with no evidence? I mean, maybe we have evidence. I mean, you're just dismissing evidence that disagrees with you. Can I answer your question? Please show me any evidence that shows adolescents that aren't given puberty blockers the rate of which they transition back. Can I answer your question? The rate of which puberty adolescents who aren't given puberty blockers de-transition, they wouldn't be de-transitioning them. Again, what are we talking about? The data we're talking about in children is children that have gender dysphoria? What rate of kids with on puberty blockers? Children that have gender dysphoria? Well, you asked me a question. Real quick, so the first, you're making the distinction. You're saying, ah, it's a difference between children and adolescents. So I believe you're conceding that the evidence suggests that children that aren't being given any sort of interventions, 70 to 90, you're not conceding that. You think the WPAT's wrong on that. No, I think that the WPAT articles you cited in particular don't demonstrate your point. I think that the specific studies they use are from Green, which have massive methodological issues that you've decided to ignore, and from Zacher who also has math. That's not the subject. I'd really like to answer your question, because I didn't get a chance to, you asked a question. So the answer is yes, there probably is a reasonable amount of people who decide, and that's, but this is the thing. That is what puberty blockers are for. It's to give children a little bit of extra time in order to assess with professionals whether or not they want to further their trans therapies. So yeah, there is probably a reasonable amount, and we should expect to see that. I personally would like to move on from here to another.  I want to say that I personally would like to move on. However, I just want to point out that you have, earlier you said, I agree with this, and I don't agree with this. And so you were agreeing with the things in the study that you agree with that it brings up to be fair in order to show the other side, and you're disagreeing with everything else that it says, and you started with only quoting from that one opening without providing anything else. To me, the audience can decide for themselves. To me, that is the essence of cherry picking. Okay, real quick. Rob, can I get in here for at least, thank you for listening, at least for being honest and answering that question. Rob, can I jump in here really fast? Sure, why not? So you've gone over a couple of things here. You said there's no issues with the Green Study. I'd like to respond to what Vadim said there. Rob, you complained so earlier. You complained so much earlier. You got so hysterical about being interrupted. I haven't interrupted you once. You could let me get some words in, right? All right. So we also have data from the more recent data, not 1987 studies with massive methodological flaws. We have very solid data from the, you can use the Australian court data on kids de-transitioning and the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne that did exactly this. So this is from about 2018 or 2019. I can source you that if you'd like. It says 96% of all patients who were assessed and received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria by the fifth intervener from 2003 to 2017 continued to identify as transgender or gender diverse into late adolescence. No patient who had commit stage two treatment had sought to transition back to their birth assigned sex. This one off example that you usually cite of Kira Bell, I don't think actually demonstrates that very well at all because Kira Bell in particular did, she did numerous things in terms of transitioning to male when she was an adult, a grown adult, which you don't actually have any issues with. So just for example, I just wanted to ask you if you admit that there's a significant amount of kids that grow out without any intervention. How do you explain the fact that according to WPATH, it's 100% once given puberty blockers that don't transition back? I don't believe it says that. Sure does. Would you like me to reread it? It says 100%. The one study. In contrast, the persistence of gender dysphoria into adulthood appears to be much higher. No formal perspective study exists. However, in a follow-up study of 70 adolescents who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria and given puberty suppressing hormones all continued with actual sex reassignment. Yeah, Rob, that's not the same thing as the claim you just made. So all in this study is not all people in general, right? No, but the study that you, so again, you're just misfighting the study. So real quick, so real quick, the accusation of cherry picking, here's how it works, right? Let's say that you wanted to say that Trump did something bad or Republicans did something bad. You might cite Fox News or Breitbart as if saying, look, even the groups that usually stick up for this have evidence of why this is bad. That's exactly what I'm doing with WPAT. Just because I disagree with their conclusions, I'm saying this is what their data that's trying to paint this picture as best as possible for puberty barcode suggestion. So real quick, so again, you want to talk about cherry picking. What we see is from the WPAT that you all would say is the gold standard in treatment for transgender individuals with healthcare professionals. So far, the studies that talk about children that grow out, you say, we don't trust WPAT on that. We think that they're giving dubious. Then when we go to the next part of adolescence, the study that Synth said, literally Synth said, oh, but if you go a step further, it shows that it disproves you because it shows 70 out of 70 stayed on, you know, the path that generally, now you're saying, well, thanks for the hundred percent. You just gushed Gallupy on a lot of points. Again, I know you say, let's kick it over.  You can chill out a little bit, my dude. That's how I talk. I understand, but it's a bit much. Maybe I have to lower my volume, but then I won't hear others as well. So Synth, I do have something to say in response to what you said, but Synth did want to talk. I just wanted to earnestly ask you just to take it down a notch. Cool. Thanks for wasting our time. Go ahead, Synth. My ear is battered by hearing matters, dude. Yeah, Rob, the goal of this conversation for us is not to like get you to erupt into hysterics. We just want to talk about the issues. Not hysterics. With the caribel, with the caribel specific thing in particular, you do agree, right, that a lot of the transitions that caribel in particular made were very, very late into our, were not late into adulthood, but they were into adulthood, right? Like the double mastectomy. Sure. Sure. I didn't bring up caribel. You all did. You did. You did. Yeah, I didn't. No, I didn't. Okay. Well, you talked about caribel and you did bring up caribel. But in response to Vadim, I didn't talk about, yeah. Vadim brought it up in reference to you bringing it up in your debate with him. What I brought up was the study from the National Health Service in the NICE, the agency that looked into this, looking at nine logical studies. It was not source by caribel at all. Yeah. No, it wasn't sourced by caribel. And the caribel. Caribel filed a lawsuit and that would be like, again, who cares who filed the lawsuit? The scientists and the medical professionals in the UK and the National Health Service decided to look at the best studies they could find and they came to the conclusion. And again, I've yet to see a study. I just told you. Yeah. No, that study had nothing to do whatsoever. The Australian Court is being effective. What's that? The Australian Court study, which shows like a 96% rate of non-desisting. What does that mean? That doesn't mean that these are safe. That means they persisted. Again, so this, you keep making my point for me. And CJ, I'd like you to weigh in. Do you see what they're doing? They're like, well, everyone that gets on puberty blocker, 96% of them stay on it. Therefore, it must be good. Hold on a second. That's my entire point to show that it's not reversible. I have a very important thing to say. I'm fine with moving on, as I said, I'd like to, but you did make quite a ludicrous claim. And I just want to ask you, what do you think is more likely here, Rob, that the study, which WPATH put out, who has said again and again that they affirm transgender care, that they are for puberty blockers, do you think it's more likely that you have misunderstood the data because you said that they are saying that 100% of children would desist if they were not given these drugs? And to me, that's just absolutely ridiculous. It's beyond ridiculous that anyone would prescribe such things if that was the case. So do you honestly think that the chances are greater that you have misinterpreted this data, or that they would actually go ahead and say, yeah, we're for this, but 100% of people who take these, if they didn't take them, they'd be fine? Am I getting through to you? I hope that, but I'm not getting through to the audience with that. I don't think maybe some of these people are reachable. It's just, it's a really- That's not my claim. So let me just clear this up for you. That was not my claim. My claim was that they said, and the study they cited 100% of people that got on puberty blockers did not transition to their sex-assided birth. That's not saying that they would have had none. I'm saying that we could see that there is a large portion of people according to WPATH that are children that grow out of this, and yet the study they cite shows that everyone that took puberty blockers stays with this path to gender reassignment. The second study that we have is the study that you cited, Vadim, and that was the study entitled, a few vertical suppression for transgender youth and risk of suicidal ideation. What do you think that study said? Every single person that they talked to that was on puberty blockers as a child stayed with it and stayed with the gender transition. So that's two examples 100%. The third example that's been given is an Australian study, which says 94% of people that were put on puberty blockers stayed with, didn't go back to their sex-assided. So we can see that the number is, we have three studies until this one from Australia was cited 100%, 100% and 94%. Now this is far greater than the amount of people that identify, they get diagnosed as gender dysphoric, that grow out of it. There's a large portion of people, as you admit Vadim, there's a large portion of people, and yet why is it then that we see that once they're given puberty blockers, a huge portion of them, it shifts to, oh, now we're not going to transition back. Rob, I think I see the mistake you're making now. Can I ask you a clarifying question about your position? Sure, yeah. So ideally, we wouldn't want to prescribe puberty blockers right to people who don't need it, who people who wouldn't end up transitioning, right? So ideally, what we would want to show puberty blockers are effective is a 100% rate of people who are on them. That would be the perfect thing, right? No, not necessarily. I guess let me put it this way. That would be ideal but not sufficient, right? It could be lower than that. But for example, let's say that we saw, anytime we see that there's going to be a significant medical intervention through chemical alterations of the body, and we see that there's a group of people that normally don't need this medicine, only a small amount of people need it. And most of the people that we think might need it actually never did it. Like let's say painkillers. Let's say that everyone who stubs their toe, only 5% of people that stub their toe need to be put on fentanyl for pain. But when we put people on fentanyl, they say it was good and they stay on it. That's not proof that the fentanyl should have been prescribed. There's only two possibilities here. Either one, the doctors are remarkably accurate at finding that small percentage of children that wouldn't grow out of being transgender, and those are the only ones being prescribed puberty blockers. Or prescribing puberty blockers, because almost everyone stays on that path once prescribed, that has an effect on people that otherwise would have transitioned back. So I don't think it's too unreasonable to assume like a 96% rate of of persistence on something like puberty blockers and then moving on to other forms of transition. You don't have to experience something firsthand to know that it's a thing you don't want to experience.  So just because you haven't experienced something firsthand doesn't mean that you can't know that it's something you don't want, right? Because you have other evidence.  You've seen other people experience puberty, right? So just because you don't have like firsthand experience on something doesn't mean that you don't know you don't want something, right? So I think ideally, we do want it to be a very high rate. Doctors can get 96% rate on a lot of things, right? There are ways that we can diagnose many different kinds of illnesses. When it comes to psychiatric illnesses such as gender identity disorder, I think that the idea that we could get like that a 96% success rate doesn't seem too ridiculous to me at all. Do you think, can I just ask you, do you think like with diagnosis of ADD and prescription Adderall, do you think they're 96% correct on that? No, ADD is ADHD now is a very, very complicated disorder. In the case of gender identity disorder, it is still complicated as all psychiatric disorders are, but not nearly the same level as like ADHD. Okay, what about like painkiller medication? Do you think it's overprescribed? Pink? Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Okay, so I just want to ask, I'm not saying that this is proof, but doesn't that cause you to scratch your head and say, geez, when we see these other mistakes that are being made by doctors that have a financial incentive, maybe they're, when we see such a discrepancy from the amount of people that naturally grow out of gender dysphoria to once we give them puberty blockers, they stay on that course, doesn't that give you any cause to pause and say, wait a minute, maybe the doctors are over prescribing this and it is causing significant amounts of people to not switch back to their gender assigned at birth? I want to change this question because you pointed out specifically like ADD and that's getting specific with it, but I want to get kind of broad, is there any psychological disorder on the entire planet, a single one that has only had, will be generous in say 50 years of study, but that's very, very generous because it's really only picked up as of the last couple of decades and really the last decade, if we're being really honest, but nonetheless, we'll go ahead and go 50. Is there any psychological disorder only studied as the last 50 years where they have a 96% successful, not only diagnosing rate, but also 96% success with a drug to try and fix that problem? I don't even know of 60%. I don't know the specific rates of, I don't know the specific case, I don't know the specific rates of the drugs, the many different drugs used to treat schizophrenia, but I do know that there are a lot of them and that we have a lot of different options. And they're way, they're way, in the case of this 96% rate and puberty is not always, it's not always the same. In the case of puberty blockers, it's not always the same thing, Lou Prellinol, I believe it is, or Lou Prellin, I think it's called, which is the main one used. There are other things that are also used as puberty blockers, so it's not one medication. So there's not really equivalent. There are a lot of different medications used for things like schizophrenia or things like a schizotypal disorder or even bipolar personality disorder. I'll just say none of them hit 90%. None of them even hit 75%. Hold on, sir, sir, sir, I'd like just a chance. It'll be quick response to your question. So it's an interesting question, but I want to note that obviously we wouldn't come necessarily fully equipped to answer that question, given that what you asked is not really about anything about puberty blockers. So the fact that we may not have an affirmative for that, not be able to give you lots of examples, doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't exist. So I just wanted to say that. I think it's a good question. Because obviously in the case of the curability of a disease, that doesn't really apply to gender identity disorder and use in puberty blockers. What this shows is that people continue to use them. So if you want to look at that, that would be more equivalent. But it's just successful treatment, right? You don't really cure psychological disorders. Well, this is not 96% of the treatment is successful. This isn't like a 96% success rate. This is 96% right persistence of continuing to use the treatment. The only thing you're doing is just changing the definition. Well, you did just interrupt me. Let's have a response from here. So yeah, you talk for a bit. So I didn't actually, I've talked less than anybody in this entire. I agree with you, CJ. I promise we'll come right back to you, CJ. I totally get where you're coming from. And we'll have plenty of time to talk. But just to let Synth finish this point, and I promise we'll come right back to you. Exactly. Yeah. So in the case of this 96% persistent rate, persistence rate, that doesn't show a 96% rate of making sure that it doesn't cause them to kill or that gender identity doesn't cause them to, GID doesn't cause them to kill themselves, or it doesn't entirely prevent suicidal ideation. They still do have gender identity disorder. They still have it. They're still going to have symptoms from it. It's still going to, it's not going to completely alleviate those symptoms. But it is helpful. And this shows 96% persistence rate. That doesn't show 96% rate of relieving the symptoms of gender identity disorder entirely. So it's kind of an, it's not really an equivalent question at all. Well, it is an equivalent question though, specifically because that's not what psychological drugs do, right? Like for example, when you take antidepressants, successful treatment of antidepressants is not you stop being depressed. It's that you end up functioning at least, and whatever, however big that spectrum of functioning is, depends on person to person of course, but you end up functioning because of the medication or things along with the medication. It's not, you know, there's no such thing as curing depression with drugs. That's not how. In the case of depression, you have depression if it's making you dysfunctional. That's the way that most ESM criteria work. Right. That's the way that all, right, exactly. You don't get treatment for something that's not a dysfunction. So I don't understand what that point is. So if it was making you, if it was making you, if it stops you from being dysfunctional, it does have a massive hand and effectively alleviating the primary symptom of depression, which is being dysfunctional. Okay. But if he wants to get points, go ahead, Rob, you go first. Yeah. The point is this, like we can see, for example, with opioids, right? Most people prescribed opioids stick with them. That doesn't mean that the doctors accurately prescribe them opioids. It becomes addictive for a litany of reasons, even if it's not physiologically addictive. And that's what we're talking about. And so you've conceded that there are issues where doctors over prescribe medications and then people get hooked on them, but you're confident that this wouldn't be the case here. I'd like to take the debate in the direction of, I just know, again, I've seen one study and you're even saying this, the study that you said from Australia, it doesn't show that puberty blockers are effective for any of the things that people are claiming. So the only study that your side has presented right now was a survey. That's it. Can you explain why that should be preferred over the National Health Service of the UK and the National Health Service of Sweden, both analyzing litany of studies and making the claim that they have no confidence that there's been enough testing to ensure that, one, these medications are desirable to help children, and second, that they don't have side effects?  Okay. Well, first of all, I did, the conclusion of that study said that this fits the known data, or I can find it and quote from it, but it cites this fits with all the data that we have, the overwhelming amount of data that we have at this point. So, okay, it was referring to other data. I know we have other data, but first of all, I mean, okay, I guess I'll kick it over to Cynthia in a second. I have some some points that I'd like to make once we move on from this. But I do want to say that a survey is not inherently like a, it depends on how the survey is conducted. And this is the largest survey of its kind. And when you like, you know, when you talk about longitudinal studies, of course, again, like we want as much of that as we can get. But, you know, checking in with people, asking them, is your is your health relatively okay? Like, has this helped with suicidal ideation? All those things, it's still like you act as if it's absolutely just not helpful whatsoever. And it just I think you're downplaying the the benefit and the just just the the results of that study, it wouldn't be if it was as meaningless as you think it happens to be, it would not be published in pediatrics, it would not be published in one of, I mean, the fourth most respected pediatrics journal with in the entire world, it just wouldn't. Okay, so again, even if we can say that surveys are something that could be useful, they're going to supplement actual scientific studies with controls that are long term longitudinal studies, that would be what's preferred. Like the Melbourne data, right? What's that? Like the Melbourne data that I said. What does it say? So it's not a survey, it uses court data instead. Sure. What's it? What's the conclusion? Sure. You said that the only said one thing about it, you said that 94% of people persist once they're 96. Okay. What else does it say? Does it say suicidal thoughts that this is a this is a survey on or not survey. This is a study on persistence, sure, not on the relief of suicidal ideation. Great. That's my point. So again, the all the ones we're talking to. Okay. So again, so again, just to be sure that we got the full answer from synth to be sure you finished with a sentence. I appreciate your tenacity, but just to be sure we heard the rest from sin. Yeah, absolutely. So no, Rob, the the issue is you referred to this as a study or not a study, you've referred to this as a survey in order to write it off. And the issue is we're not going to have things that are both showing rates of persistence generally, and also showing the ability for it to relieve suicidal ideation. But we can take both of these things and make judgments because of it, right? We could take individual studies and put together like larger world views around that. So go ahead. Are you finished? Yeah, go ahead. Cool. I don't disagree with that, right? The problem is the first what you're saying here this again, we've given you might not agree with CJ and I, but we've given a plausible explanation just because people persist with the medication doesn't mean that the medication is helpful. So the reason that we I think that I did a good job outlining when it comes to children because they can't consent, we ought to be damn sure that the medication we're giving them is necessary and it's safe. And you haven't provided any evidence that you provided one study from Australia that says most people that get on it stay on it and then you provided a survey. Again, you say, well, why would this survey be published in a bunch of these institutions if it's not a really great survey? Okay, can you can either of you explain to me why is your argument that the National Health Service of Britain is transphobic? And that's why they're intentionally misrepresenting these longitudinal studies. Again, why don't we prefer a national health service from a country that we're told is a health service country that we should look to emulate them researching for over a year, every study that they could and coming to the conclusion that they think it would be very bad to give puberty blockers to children because there's just not enough evidence and the evidence that we have is very poor. Why would they publish that if it's not true? Okay, like, honestly, I'd like to move on. I mean, Synth, if you want to tackle that, that's fine. It's just I feel like we've been staying on this one thing for a very long time and there's just a wealth of other topics within this one topic to discuss. So, Synth, do you want to? I want to say one last thing and then that we can move it to wherever the rest of the group wants. I don't want to force people to stick onto this topic, but if it's the issue is a lack of the number of studies, I didn't want to throw out a bunch of points to you at once because I think it's a little bit unfair to like gish call it be with a bunch, but we can look at the there is a study from Amsterdam from 1972 up to 2015, which shows a 95 percent rate, a study of about 143 youth in the Netherlands, which shows a 3.5 percent assistance rate. So, that's the inverse rate. A Williams Institute report that finds there is no significant difference between the number of trans teens, the number of trans adults, 0.7 and 0.6 percent respectively, that the slight decrease the older age groups could be down to rejection from peers alone. So, we have more than just one or two studies. I just want to rock out a bunch that you'd have to address. Now I have, so I guess we can go wherever you guys want to. Can I ask you a question real quick? Do any of those studies, those are just talking about the assistance rates, right? They don't talk about suits. You asked me about the rate of distance. No, that's not, we moved on from that. We've moved on from that, right? The rate of distance, there's never been a disagreement. Me and CJ have agreed from the get go. Yes, a huge percentage of people that take puberty blockers never transmission back to their gender. There's no debate there. Again, the question that- Can you repeat that? Can you repeat that? I'm not, I could understand what you said. A huge portion, whether it be 100%, 94%, as the Australian study said, some of these others. I've conceded this from the get go. It's part of my argument. A huge percentage of people that are put on puberty blockers never transition back to their sex assigned at birth. And there's no disagreement there. Are you contending that taking puberty blockers makes someone more prone than becoming transgender to sticking with their preferred gender, which is opposite to their gender at birth? Yes, the evidence seems to suggest because there are a lot of young people, real quick, because there are a lot of young people that transition back to their sex assigned at birth if they're not given puberty blockers. And then once they're given puberty blockers, there's only two explanations. I just needed a yes or a no. I did not need it. I don't understand. I think we've been very clear. There's only two explanations. Right, right, right.  Rob, once again, I will say that if that was the case and that they had a likelihood of making someone trans, then girls who take it for precocious puberty would be coming trans. No, it's a perfectly good answer because there's nothing about their state of being that is going to make them, that is going to change their physiology in a way that is different from it. Do you understand what I'm saying here? Rob and CJ, let me try to repeat your argument back to you so that you know that I know where you're coming from. You're saying the explanatory factor for why the puberty blockers given to other groups of people that aren't being diagnosed for gender identity disorder and they're being used for other means. The reason they don't turn out to be trans is because there is not the environment around them that pushes them towards being trans. This is your explanatory factor. I was just making sure that we're on the same page. So other than that, that would mean I guess then that if you were to take a person who was in the same environment and they weren't given puberty blockers at all, they would also be pushed towards being trans, correct? I would even say likely because we do have, like I said, it's not in this particular instance, but we do have tons of instances with unrelated things like Stockholm syndrome and cults and stuff like that. And I'm not even necessarily saying that. My only point is just to say that we do know, and even if you don't want to go, because those are extreme examples, even just think of the fact that most people retain their birth religion, which is a very unextreme example.  So I think that would be very likely that even without puberty blockers it could potentially be. Now I don't know necessarily, you'd have to do like a test where you had one group which maybe was in this environment without the puberty blockers, a group that was in this environment with the puberty blockers and then maybe two groups that were kind of the inverse of both of those. And I have a four-way study that could be perhaps ideal, but I think it's likely to finish my point. Sure, so then your argument doesn't even really point at puberty blockers being the issue.   I can tell now because I'm hitting puberty. If you stop that puberty from occurring, then you're going to see, how would you know? How would you know if you think maybe I was biologically boy, real quick biologically boy and then, but I don't know, I feel like I'm a girl. And it turns out most people when they start to hit puberty go, oh, okay, actually, I do feel like a boy now that hit puberty. If you never hit that puberty, how would you know? Well, that's the difference. Okay, first of all, of course, I assume you know this, they do go through puberty. They just go through a, I mean, eventually, if they continue with it, they go through the puberty of their preferred gender. But I'd like to move this to a different thing. I'd like to highlight other reasons why taking puberty blockers are a good thing that have not been outlined. I mean, we've talked about suicidal ideation. We've talked about, well, there's also anxiety, there's also studies that show that people due to lack of anxiety will do generally better at schoolwork. And that is, of course, important in terms of setting them up for the rest of their lives. But very importantly, it also allows for a far more passable transition over the course of their adulthood. There's plenty of effects of going through puberty of the gender that they were assigned with at birth that are irreversible, which often create continued dysphoria. So of course, the likelihood of problems with dysphoria are drastically reduced this way. And finally, it's far less costly not to go through, it's far less costly if you actually take puberty blockers, because then you're not left with all these irreversible effects. And trans patients often have to spend far more than they would have otherwise to have a whole range of surgeries that they would not have to do otherwise in order to reach a level where they feel like they pass suitably. So I felt it was very important to highlight all of those benefits, which you just are not going to get if you allow a child to go through puberty as they normally would. Okay, so the problem with this is all of those things are superficial. The reason that those things would matter is because of people's mental health. For example, you wanting to have gender reassignment surgery and wanting to pass more as the gender that you identify with, those things all matter because it could affect your mental health. And again, I go back to this, I'm waiting for either of you to provide studies, show me the studies that show that it improves mental health or that it improves suicide rates or anxiety. Again, I could read from, I'm the only one reading non-survey studies, I'm actually reading from two, two, yes, you haven't, you haven't, yes, you like, he's named a bunch, real quick. What is this? What is this? May I finish? May I finish?  He sent named a bunch of studies that I kept asking, does that talk about suicide rates? Does that talk about anxiety? He said, no, it just talks about people that stick with it. That's it. I keep saying, can you provide the studies that suggest, because again, we have the best health service systems in the world, or at least what we're told are amongst the best in both Sweden and the UK, both have looked at nine or have looked at multiple longitudinal studies and came to the conclusion they had no confidence that things, and I can read this to you. I could read exactly what it said.  The study by DeVries and all found in 70 adolescents of gender dysphoria found that treatment with GMRH analogs before starting gender affirming hormones does not affect anger, does not affect anxiety, and all of these things. Again, I read the conclusion again that said that even the studies that suggested there could be some benefits, they didn't have control groups, they have no evidence. Like one of the things, if you read this, they talk about a lot. If you're the type of parent that's willing to have your child go through puberty blockers, you're probably the type of parent that's taken their psychological health seriously before that. It turns out that parents that have a vested interest in their children, guess what? Their children are less likely to have anxiety. They're less likely to have suicidal thoughts and things like that. These control studies will never, I can do both of your jobs better than you. For example, It puts a lot of Robert with your narrative of it being like a cult-like environment earlier, right? Who said anything? I didn't say it. CJ did. Yeah, I know somebody did on your team, right? Okay. You both did. Yeah, you both did. I didn't say anything. Look, the truth is there is a lot. Listen, again, it's amazing. Come on, you were talking. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to let you get away with this. I hate to jump in, but just, so we definitely heard a good chunk of time from you, Rob. And so I want to give it back to Synth and Vadim, and we also, folks, we'll be going to the Q&A shortly. So we'll still have some interchanges back and forth for Rob and CJ to get more in as well. But do want to mention, folks, we are excited for Q&A. If you happen to have questions, fire them into the old live chat. You have two options. One, super chat. We read those first. Two, if you just tag me with modern day debate, I can also scoop your question from the chat that way as well. And so thanks so much. And go ahead, Synth and Vadim. So Rob, I just don't see how you could not spot that you were doing just that.  You have absolutely no studies to back this up. You kept on saying that there is, in your opinion, a high likelihood that these things are being very overprescribed just so doctors can make money. So to me, that's like kind of getting into like the whole cult thing.  And this is sort of like a loaded way of putting things. Because first of all, children aren't on their own consenting. As I outlined in the beginning, they, first of all, have plenty of sections. They are seeing endocrinologists. They are seeing psychiatrists. They are seeing doctors. They are seeing pediatricians. They are doing this usually over the period of a few years. And they're making these decisions with their family, with their parents. It's not just like they're walking in and saying like, hey, I want some puberty blockers. Give them to me now. And they get them like a stickers bar and walk out. It's just not that way, dude. And then when it comes to consent, children consent to all sorts of things. I mean, a children is going to consent if they need something like chemotherapy or something of that sort. And then there are also things that, I mean, I'm just curious, do you have a problem with, say, circumcision? Is that something that you have a problem with? Because that's something that children don't consent. That's an extremely invasive surgery. And we just do. So the reason why I bring that up is because it's like, you're talking about a lack of consent when there are all these sorts of things I could name more where children are giving consent to things. And there's a number of things where they don't. And in this case, really, this is the main point that I'm trying to make here.  I don't want to assume what, you know, like or bisexual. I don't want to assume what you are. So I don't know, I have more to say, but yet I want to be fair and either let synth or one of you guys talk right now. Just real quick, when we're talking about consent, we allow children to have medications if they're not experimental. We could have a conversation on circumcision. I might surprise you in what I think about it. But the point is, you or synth have not cited one study, not one study, not one study that sought to say that it lowers suicide rates. It helps with anxiety. It helps with depression. You haven't cited one, all you've done was cite study after study that show the majority of people that take puberty blockers stick with gender reassignment. That's it. That's the only studies I'm citing studies. And again, it's ironic because we started this off with your opening statement saying, oh, the science is on our side. You have, I'm literally citing from that, please. I left you. I'm making you're making an incorrect statement. And I'd like to set the record straight. Yeah, no, absolutely. So the reason I brought up those several studies earlier, Rob, was because you asked about the rates of assistance. You did. You said at what rate do you think it is? And you say it's you ask even asked, like, is it above or below 50% real well into it? That's why I cited you several studies. You said I cited no studies initially. Now you've moved it to Oh, those studies were on the wrong thing. True. You did. We can roll the tape back at some point. Sure, we can watch this back. Yeah. So there are absolutely, absolutely a lot of studies. I have a DV. So here we I'll open it up. And I believe this is going to be the PubMed link on this study, which shows behavioral and emotional problems and depressive symptoms decreased while general functioning improved significantly during puberty suppression. If you'd like, I'll link that to you. Yeah, please. How do I link to this thing? Oh, let me open it back up. The study is from it is a study from it's got four authors here. One is a DeViris. I can't pronounce that name. So if you don't mind, if you don't mind me, let's talk about what it surprised you to know that the rise at all 2011 is that what you're talking about? Well, surprise. Yeah, I should be okay. Surprise, surprise. That's literally one of the nine studies that was looked at by the National Health Service. Literally for some. So again, they read the Defri study and they said, listen, we don't have confidence that this study says what they're claiming it does, because in reality, there's no control group. So again, that's why I'm so like I'm trying to get what you said there's no control group. This I'll just read what they said. Like, so one second, we get it's lengthy. But again, I'll post you methods of these 70 eligible candidates who received puberty suppression between 2000 and 2008 psychological functioning and gender dysphoria were assessed twice at T zero when attending the gender identity clinic before the start of GNRHA and at T one shortly before the start of cross sex hormone treatment. Okay, so here we go. Executive summary of the review nine observational studies were included in the evidence review five studies were retrospective three studies were perspective. And that includes costa now devrise in 2011 two studies were provided comparative evidence. The terminology used in this topic is continually evolving and depending on in this evidence review, we use the phrase people's critical outcomes. It talks about the study and debris said the gender dysphoria found the treatment does not affect gender dysphoria second on mental health. It devrise and all 70 adolescents gendered for you found the treatment before starting does not affect anger found that it does not affect anxiety will go down to their conclusions. This is one of the studies that they use. They talk about in their conclusion that they do not, which I already read like three times. Sorry, it's hard to scroll. It's page know their conclusions as they puberty suppression may be considered a valuable contribution and the clinical man from the national health services that looked at this study along with eight other study quote the results of the studies that reported impact on critical outcomes of gender dysphoria and mental health, depression, anger and anxiety and the important outcomes of body, image and psychological impact, global and psychological funding in children and adolescents with gender dysphoria are a very low certainty. They suggest little change with puberty blockers from baseline to follow up studies. So the NHS says this. So the NHS says one thing that agrees with you and every other medical association on the on the world agrees with us. So that's not that's not like that's I have the guy on my I have another study. I have another study. I'd like to hear it. The drama in April 28th of 2021 published association between gender affirming surgery surgeries and mental health outcomes and the results of that are the conclusions and relevance. The study demonstrates an association between gender affirming surgery and improved mental health outcomes. They result these results contribute new evidence to support the provision of gender affirming surgical care. Okay, that's surgical care. I guess I guess that's not surgical care. Not talking about with children. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. All right. But but it does show that that there are what is relevant here is that there are that there are improved mental health outcomes. And the reason I mean I think one can logically deduce why there are positive outcomes is because of the fact that they are enabled to like have a more passable body. And that's that that's what the you know that's why people take these I'm sorry I'm getting I don't know why I'm having a little trouble talking here. That's why they take puberty blockers in order to allow their bodies to not fully reach past transition. So do you see the the the the connection here? Well, the connection is both of these things allow people to pass better. And that's the reason why they are feeling better. And as a matter of fact, I'd like to bring up before you were saying, oh, well, that's just and I hope you remember what I'm talking about.  Well, all these things are mental health issues. It's what we're talking about the the the issues that people have with their their own bodies and the anxiety and depression and, you know, suicidality, all those things that that can bring. And let me let me ask you one more question. Do you just doubt that they're that that that like experiencing gender dysphoria does lead to I mean, you do know that it does lead to suicidality, right? You don't doubt that. Sure. Okay, I mean, obscenely so I have my understanding is correct. It's like the highest controlled group for suicidality in the world. Right. Right, it is. But having these these these therapies reduces the I mean, that's where we disagree, right? No one's disagree. You keep everyone keeps bringing up things that we agree. The question is, are these experimental medications that we have the most prominent health services in the world saying this is too experimental? The evidence, the only evidence now that you've the most prominent in the world. Please go ahead. Go ahead. Please. So again, you've cited a survey and you cited devise, right, which was actually looked at by the National Health Service that says, we do not find this compelling and analyzed like 70 people. They didn't think that there were that there was enough to be able to suggest that this is something that we should be able to prescribe purity blockers for children, right? The disagreement we're having is when I didn't get a chance to answer this, but when we were talking about consent, we don't as adults, if you want to take an experimental drug or therapy, that's fine. You have the ability to weigh the pros and cons. Children don't have that. And so we as adults need to make sure they do. No, they don't. It's absurd to even claim that they do. So, yes, for example, if a child walks in, real quick, if a child walks in and says, a child can consent a 16 year old child or a 15 year old child can legally take birth control on their own. They can understand the risks involved with that. There are more risks than taking luprin. And it's really the fact that this is trans related. Okay. So just real quickly, I have a question for you. I have a question. I just want to interrupt you real quick. Again, the difference is both controls and medications. One thing is we do have to, I want to hear from CJ a bit more if you have anything to say, CJ. I hate to do that, but just because it's been a fast-paced one. So CJ has a mellow nature that I want to be sure if you had anything to add, you would be able to. Well, there is a couple of things for sure. So the first thing I would want to point out is just briefly in regards to the consent thing. I think usually we tend to say children can start to give certain forms of consent around the age of 16 years old. My understanding of puberty blockers is that you want to be almost done with your treatment by 16, because logically you're supposed to be done with pubescy by the age of 16. So obviously you would like to block it before then probably between the ages of 13, 14. I assume you'd probably start as young as 12. And my understanding of what I've read from other people, which to be fair is not as strong as it could be, has seemingly suggested exactly that. You start at about the age when pubescy would begin, which is sometimes between the ages of 12 and 13, wanting to be completed with your roughly 24 month treatment by the ages of 15 and 16 when you start to enter your post-pubescy period. I don't know of anything that 12-year-old children are allowed to consent to. In fact, I remember even just being in high school and I wanted to get an aspirin because I had a headache in my freshman year. They had to call my father and make sure that he got consent, because I wasn't allowed to take the aspirin nor were my technical legal guardians, which is what your principal at school actually is in that instance. Nor was he allowed to because even though he was my legal guardian, in that instance, it was a custodianship. It wasn't like his actual guardianship like my father would be. That's a ridiculous point, by the way, given what we've already, I'm just saying.   They are going through rigorous meetings with various different types of doctors and psychological professionals, and they are hearing out and being explained with their parents all of the risks and benefits that are known with taking these therapies. It's absolutely irrelevant because they're not making it on their own. It doesn't matter if they're making it on their own. That's not the point. That's not the point. The point is that they're not capable of making the decision period, right? For example, child marriage. Nobody in a child marriage is making it on a child's own, right? They have usually a religious official involved. The elder members of the family are involved. The other person's family are involved. That doesn't make the child marriage cool, right? So is it okay if a child all of a sudden develops some spontaneous? What if a kid has cancer? First off, their parents alone usually have to give the consent, not the child. So that's the first thing to get clear. The second thing when a child has cancer is, frankly, that's not the same thing, right? You're talking about a situation. Again, if I could interject, chemotherapy by itself proves that it's not the same thing, because chemotherapy is literally an attempt to kill everything in the body. You don't do that for things that are normal.  So CJ, I'm not sure if your dream is different than transitioning or anything of that nature. It's just ridiculous to claim that children are capable of making these decisions. They're not. Here, look, I actually, this is a aspirin thing. You see this? On the back of this, it says, not to take this unless you are 12 years of age. This is a meriprosal, so an anti-acid reducer. Once again, 12 years of age. Because they're bad for your liver, CJ. It's vitamin C. It is literally only vitamin C. It's not even medication. 14 is what it says on the back. Don't take this unless you're at least 14. In other words, all of us are allowed to take non-life-threatening situations. They can take all those things when they consult a physician and when they talk to their parents about it. And they consent. They could say like, oh, yeah, I need that. So they do consent.  I'd like to bring up one thing.  So I just want to, I want to ask you both just a yes or no would suffice. Are you guys familiar with an alternative that is not usually prescribed or is prescribed less for gender dysphoria, albuterol sulfate? Are you guys familiar with it? Not in particular. Okay, well, I just want to read you these side effects. Headache, dizziness, insomnia, persistent cough, nausea, nervousness, shakiness, muscle aches, and more serious, although less common side effects include rapid heart rate, rapid heart rate and heart palpitations. So I mean, how do you feel about that? Yeah, do you guys think those outweigh the, do you guys think those outweigh the fact that this is like a thing that can save people's lives? Do you think those, those, those minor side effects can do that? So what you're doing is reading off of medication that's been, it probably has nothing to do with puberty book is you're trying to get us in some gotcha. What it is, it's probably like aspirin or some, something that's prescribed. Real quick, real quick. I sit here and let everyone talk about what we're doing is again, what we're doing is you're talking about drugs that there have been rigorous research on, including on children and the long-term effects of them. That's not, we're not talking about birth control. We're not talking about chemotherapy. The reason that parents and children can come to decisions on those sorts of treatments is because they've been assured by rigorous testing in the medical community, doing long longitudinal tests, including on long-term effects, as to whether or not those things are safe. So when you saying, well, in reality, what happens is that these kids are talking with their doctors and they're telling them the side effects. What the studies are saying is the doctors don't know the side effects because the research hasn't been done. So even if the doctor says no, they don't. No, they don't. No, wait, wait, wait, wait. This is very important. This is very important. Hold on one second, we've got two people on the same. Okay. So what we can do is we can give you a quick, pity response, and then we do have to go on the Q&A. Okay. So, since let me take this. Okay. Go ahead, yeah. Because you were right. I was talking about asthma in here, they've only been around since 1982. So you're really only talking about eight years more of being around. And as I said before, you keep on discounting it, but this medication has been around for decades, far longer than it's been widely described for puberty blockers. And they have not found these side effects to be more severe. And you have not outlined a reason why we would think just only in the case of prescribing it for gender nonconforming children or rather trans children is going to somehow inhibit a far worse response than we see in other humans who happen to take it. You haven't done that.  Let me just ask you point by just real quick. It's so obvious. It's so obvious. Why do you think the National Health Service made this huge mistake then? Probably because it's like the UK is probably one of the most transphobic countries in the world compared to other Western countries. Sweden didn't make this mistake. One hospital Sweden did. Would you like me to read Sweden study again? Would you like me to read? Do you think this is the entirety of Sweden that has this banned puberty blockers? It says it's not that they banned them. The answer is no. So there was the national health, the Swedish Agency for Health Technological Assessment did this study. They commissioned a study and I already read you the results of this study that they said that there's not enough research to talk about the long-term effects. One gender clinic doing this as opposed to the vast majority of major health organizations around the world, which you claim none of them support it. The AMA, both APAs, the OEA, the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Family Physicians, massive organizations, huge organizations, all which disagree with you and agree with us. Show me the studies. Yeah, the issue is what you're doing now is you're not pointing to a study. What you're doing is you're pointing to the NHS going and doing an overview of other studies. They also did overviews of studies, right? So when you point to the NHS doing this and say this is legitimate from my side, but we can't do the same with every other health organization in the world, this seems remarkably unfair. No, no, no, please. Maybe you misunderstood me. I welcome you to show these health agencies saying, here are the nine studies we looked at and here's our conclusion. Go ahead. I was just going to say, I just think it's absolutely ridiculous to think that any of those associations that I mentioned in the beginning would ever come out and say as stridently for puberty blockers without having any data to back that up. I mean, that's not how medicine works. They work off of data. They don't work off of fields. Right. And so when I cite evidence when we actually say, the difference is the site I'm citing went through the study. You could read the study and how they go through it and how they came to their conclusions. When I read that real quick, real quick when I read that, when I read that NHS or when I read that census up, they're transphobic. We discount them. They're transphobic. And then you say, but we have to trust these health organizations. It is transphobic. That's literally what you said. I didn't respond to what you said. NHS was transphobic. I said there's an explanatory factor for why the NHS in particular would have a more right-leaning view on this than every single other every single other organization we can provide sources for, like for example, the APA. The APA didn't just like feel about this. They did go through the studies, right? They did do that. Sure. So I can link you the specific APA action thing. And they'll go through the what they think about the data here. We can go over like the, we can go over other things as well. Do you want to just link that link all of these two? Sure, thank you. And then tell me it's in the chat on the right side, right? So I look for them. Yeah, sure. So it'll be nice to see where they're saying like, we looked at these nine longitudinal studies and here's how we evaluated the control groups that they had, the methodology that they had, whether or not we had confidence in their conclusion. I totally welcome that. If you look on the right side of the screen, you should see those are my handful of those. You want to go over like from top from bottom to top again? Sure, sure. Go for it. Sure. So the APA, they source the America psychologist volume 79, number 9, 2015, which also sorts the sources studies here. But the overall the overarching conclusion here is that the APA absolutely does agree that this is a legitimate means preventing a lot of a lot of means of destruction. But that's not what you said it was going to say. You said that it was going to go through the studies. It does. You said it was going to go through the studies. No, no, no. It just said this study says this. It doesn't say this is why we believe this study. Here was the methodology. Here's how we evaluate it compared to other studies. That's what the National Health Service did. You did this for refutations. That's what the National Health Service did. So I'm just curious. If you want to see the methodology of the study, the study will tell you the methodology. No, it's not just the methodology, right? What this group? That's what you just talked about how we did the study. For example, I could say, for example, there's two ways I could do this. As Rob Noor, who has a channel, we all have channels, right? I could do this. I could say, I trust this study from CJ 2021. I trust this study. And it says puberty dollars are bad. And then I would say, I sourced a study. I sourced a study. You might say, well, wait a minute. Why do you have confidence in that study? Have you compared it to other studies? That's one way of doing it. Or I could say, I've looked at nine longitudinal studies. The health experts in my country, and we came to the conclusion that the evidence is lack. Rob, you're being remarkably disingenuous here. The NHS didn't compare studies that disagreed to studies that did and come to this conclusion. What they did is they went through studies that agreed, only studies that agreed, and they tried to refute these studies, right? They didn't show studies that show that there's actually like a negative effect for puberty blockers. That's not true. Okay, which studies of yours have a negative effect for puberty blockers? For example, they cite the study on bone density and bone density loss.  No, again, it suggests. The thing which also exists for kids who are given puberty blockers for precocious puberty. Again, what it was doing, so what these people are doing. But you don't disagree with precocious puberty using puberty blockers. Again, you said that they only looked at studies that were pro puberty blockers. That's not true. They looked at studies and they said that both the studies for the mental health effects, correct. They looked at studies that were both for and against puberty blockers and they came to the conclusion that they did not feel that there was a large enough body of evidence to make a conclusion either way. And therefore, we shouldn't be using children as guinea pigs testing unproven medication without a large enough body of evidence to determine whether the medicines are necessary and they don't have harmful side effects. Your strongest source is the NHS being neutral about it. Correct.  What you have is a bunch of organizations that are just citing sources and they're not looking at those sources in the methodology. You don't think they're... This was at first group that sought... You think they're not looking at the methodologies? Again, that's just... That's exactly what I'm telling you, that these are people that just want to say, this is our opinion and we stick with it, that they haven't gone through. They have not done the work, the scientific work goes through. And look at these studies and make comparative analysis to determine whether or not that they are... Rob, can we be in here? Rob, Rob, it's so embarrassing to... It is embarrassing. No, it is embarrassing to assume that these... Again, the endocrinology... Wait, what are they called? The endocrine society. Literally, the largest group within the world, the largest and most respected group, to think that they would just be like, yeah, we like this, but we have absolutely no data to back that up. I mean, to genuinely think that that's the way that huge medical bodies that are literally the most respected within their relevant fields, that that's how they do things. If you want to hear the... Can I quote the endocrine society? Can I quote the endocrine society real quick? Can I quote them? Please, please, this is so important. Yes, yes, yes. I'd love to hear your cherry-picked... James is trying to say something. Let's have CJ have the last word we haven't heard from CJ a lot, and then we got to go into the Q&A. It's already been two hours. So go ahead, CJ. I just want to point out, you just claimed that the NHS operated that way, that it's because of some level of transphobia, right, that they come to the conclusions that they come to, or because that is literally explicitly what you claimed. You said that Britain is the most transphobic... You're slightly misinterpreting there. I understand why. If you want, I can clarify. Go right ahead. I don't think that the reason the NHS operates this way is because of some kind of active transphobia or bigotry. I just think they're in an environment where that's going to be a lot more common than other places, and so that can affect their judgment.  Well, that still even totally works with what I would be trying to say. And in fact, I would even say, I would question, well, what about when all of these different organizations said something different about transgenderism, or about anything, for that matter, nymphomania, homosexuality, all that other kind of stuff. Were they all still... Well, they're all highly respected, and so it's really important, right? Was it still all that stuff then, or was it at that point, because of maybe some level of bias, some level of environment they grew up in, whatever it happens to be, right? It doesn't really matter. The point is they were wrong, and they were wrong because of human agenda, really, even if it was subconscious, right? I totally think that such a thing could occur. In fact, I'm just curious. Simple yes or no would be fine, if you want to explain you can. But I'm just curious, what do you guys think about medical marijuana? Good, bad? I don't really care about it. I mean, I think it's good, but it can have negative effects. It can have positive effects. I actually agree with you, Vadim. Did you know that most of the most well-respected medical organizations in the world, even despite clear evidence to the contrary, would disagree with what you just said. In fact, in the United States, at least, it's listed as a drug with no discernible positive medical effects whatsoever. Now, obviously, that's not the question. We're going to talk about weed. But notice what we have now here. We have an issue where now you have to come to a conclusion. Is it because of bias that they have decided that weed has absolutely nothing there? And if it is because of bias, then how come it's not possible for them to be biased on this issue? And if it's not because of bias, then obviously it's due to some methodological issue. How come it's not the same? How come we can't say the same thing about methodological issue in this one and so on and so forth? In other words, just because these medical groups have certain opinions, what does that actually mean? We know that, for example, certain society's views on these things are changing. We expect that the majority opinions might change as well. What impact does that actually have on the question itself, especially considering that? I mean, I only mentioned a couple, but there's a litany of things. I can guarantee that both of you disagree with the APDA and numerous other well-respected psychological. I'm not actually sure about that. In the case of medical marijuana, CJ, I don't know much about it, but I'll admit that the evidence I have seen in favor of it being used medically seems to not be the strongest in the world. It does seem that it has some legitimate uses in terms of like stress relief, which I wouldn't think that most organizations would disagree with this, but so does alcohol. It's just alcohol, damage, you're liberating in a pretty massive way whereas weed doesn't have that same effect, right? So we didn't prep for a conversation on weed, but we could talk about that a little bit if you want. Well, and maybe I will pursue it just because I don't want to change the topic, but my only point in bringing it up... Do you want me to answer that very quickly? I can answer it like two sentences, which is just that, yeah, I would like to see the literature I could actually see because I often see people over completely making wild claims about its efficacy. So if I read the literature, I might be convinced otherwise because I'm not that well versed on the literature. And all fair, all fair. And like I said, I won't pursue it because I know it's not the topic of the debate, but the only point was just to say like, it's very common for us to come to different understandings than the experts. The experts themselves seem to change. I mean, there's been like 60 SMs each one with very contradictory information compared to the other one. Sometimes that's because of evolution, sometimes that's because of a devolution of some kind. Regardless, things change. People's opinions change. People's interpretation of the evidence has changed. And I don't think just because we have groups saying, well, hey, we affirm this, knowing that we live in a society that is getting more towards affirming this, that just doesn't seem to mean anything to me. Like it's the same thing as... We must jump into the Q&A. Yeah, that's right. I'll grant you that patiently. It'll take a few seconds. Oh, hold on one second. Just because I know everybody wants to still add points, but we do. I want to jump into the Q&A just because we do have a number of questions to try to get through. And so... We'll answer in the Q&A. I'll say in the Q&A. Folks, I do want to remind you, our guests are linked in the description. We highly encourage you. If you haven't already, what are you waiting for? That includes via the podcast. You can also find our guest links if you're listening to the Modern Day Debate podcast episode of this debate. So what are you waiting for? Click on those links down below.  If they've prevented suicide, yeah. But I don't think that's true. Got you on. Well, Vadim, if you have a response, we'll give you a chance. I think that's... His response is just fine with me. I don't think... I'd like to wait for a better question. This one from Patrick Smith says, that famous picture of Nazis burning books was from the library of Magnus Hirschfeld, who experimented with children, hormones, and sex changes. History repeats itself, F around and find out. I don't think the CJ or Raaba advocate in favor of what that guy was saying. Yeah, that's a little out there. I'm 100% sure what the commenter is saying, to be honest, and perhaps... That the Nazis are going to come back and tell the French people. They're likening, you know, puberty blockers to the experiments that Nazis performed, supposedly. What? No, they were saying the Nazis burned books of people who were trans. This is true, actually. A lot of Nazi book burnings were about trans science, and we've seen it set back a lot of years because of that.  This one coming in from... Whoa, okay, that's real rough. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah. P Barnes says, question for Rob, if the wealth of studies and data was increased to a level you thought sufficient would you support these treatments and where would that level be? I think first, I'd just like to say because I didn't get a chance to respond, U.S.-based endocrine society in 2018 encouraged the defining of weak evidence, stating the findings of benefits of hormone inventionals in terms of psychological functioning and overall quality of life comes from, quote, low quality evidence, which translates into low competence of the balance of risk and benefits. So, yes, they admit that the evidence is low quality and they still have made that declaration, which goes along with what this question is asking. Yes, if the preponderance of evidence shows that a treatment is better for people and it helps them and that the benefits outweigh the cost and we have a significant amount of scientific evidence to suggest that, then I wouldn't be against these sort of things. We'd still have to be very judicious in how we apply treatments, but that's the case with any medical treatments. And I think that right now that there's too flippant that we're giving these things. And as many people have said, including the people that's one of the gentlemen who started the Dutch protocols, that we don't know why... Can we do this at like, when we have a chance to respond to you, right? Yeah, you're... Because you're Q&A. This is Q&A, like, more... Right, right, I know. You cited the endocrine society and then I wasn't given the chance to respond but now I'm answering the question. CJ got the closing statement, right? Cool, cool. Anyways, I didn't interrupt you all when questions were asked you. If these were questions you were answering. Sure, and it goes right along because what happens is that we could see that there are people giving these prescriptions with very low quality evidence. We should seek high quality evidence before we give these sorts of treatments to children. And so, what I would say is... Hold on, well, let's just... Let me just check. Okay, technically, I said is it for Rob? So sorry, I had to see CJ to cut you off but just because we don't want to have too much. Is there... Let's see. This one, Duck Commander says, first question, did Rob really suggest that doctors are getting kids hooked on puberty blockers? I mean, yeah, I mean, again, if he's asserting that they are selling them for profit and that's something that he's worried about, I think that's very much implied by that conspiratorial thinking. It's not just for profit, but that's certain... Go for it. Okay, thanks. It's not just for profit, but it's also sort of... We see the politicization of science. We can see it around COVID where all the scientists said it came from a lab and then they admitted, oh yeah, it looks like it could have came from a lab but we didn't want to help Trump. Science isn't bereft of politics, so there's kind of the cultural environment going around, the politics going around, financial incentives and things like that. Yes, just like they got them hooked on ADD medications, just like they got people hooked on all sorts of things. It's not just that they're greedy, they might think that it's also useful but certainly the evidence seems to suggest that they're prescribing it far more now than they used to and people are... Once they get on it, they don't really get off that pipeline. And you would agree that it's completely understandable that there would be more people taking it by virtue of the fact that trans people are more accepted within society, that people have more access to information about it on the internet. I mean, that's pretty understandable, right? But the rates that they see it's increasing is even worrying the people that wrote the original papers on trans health, like the rate that it's occurring. And would you also concede that... I will concede that that could certainly have something to do with it. Would you concede that there is political momentum and there are parents encouraging children to be trans that otherwise... No, no, no. I think that that's a very... I mean, that kind of gears into sort of like transgender discussion. And I do not think... I don't think that a child can be... I think that sexuality or rather our gender is such a... Like if my parents tried to force me to be another gender, it wouldn't work. That's how fixed that is within our being. So I think that the whole idea of brainwashing someone...  We know that those things don't work. I don't think that they work in terms of gender at all. And I think it's a very silly thing to suggest. I know we actually do have studies on that. Go ahead.  So that...  Yeah, but that's... One there sitting there and... Okay, all right. We can go on. I would actually just throw one thing in there. So when it comes to conversion therapy, there is a huge preponderance of evidence. It doesn't work if you want to schedule a debate on that sometimes as well. I'm down for it. I don't think you're advocating for conversion therapy though, so I don't want to push you for it there. But the APA, both of them, agrees that conversion therapy is not effective. SOCE, our analysis of the methodology of SOCE reveals substantial deficiencies. Due to these limitations, the recent empirical literature provides a little basis for concluding whether SOCE has any effect on sexual orientation. So this is... I'm not sure that the inverse of SOCE would work out. And I just want to say, if you have that debate, you have to bring back Milo Yiannopoulos. You could convince children. You could convince children. If... Why is there a propensity then for trans-advocate parents to have trans children? That's a... That's an obvious reason for this. That's an absolute misconception. There have been lots of people who have claimed that. Like for instance, Avery Jackson, who was on the cover of National Geographic. Many people said that about her. Blair White said that about her. But if you look into her, she actually didn't even know... That is, the mother didn't even know what transgenders or transness was. And she became an activist after the fact. After her child, she realized had gender dysphoria. So I've never seen an example of her. Yeah, I really haven't seen it. That's not true about Avery Jackson? No, I don't know about that specifically. But so many, it's true that... And if the truth is that, if you're saying that gender is so ingrained that parents can't convince their children otherwise, then we wouldn't have seen a mass increase in people that were trans.  You're saying gender is so ingrained that parents can't convince people. They're still trans even if they're not presenting, right? So I've conceded that, yes, as we've opened up more societal acceptance for trans, clearly that could lead to more trans people. But you're unwilling to say the inverse. More trans people. It's just, it's not more trans people problem. Yeah, I'm willing to say... I'm willing parents could convince their children to build the other way. Yes, yes. As I said before, I think that that is a really, really ridiculous thing to assume that people can be brainwashed into being a gender that they do not naturally feel like they are. That's how I feel about it. If Synth disagrees, he can voice. I don't. Otherwise, we can move on. We've got this one. I don't disagree with being at all there yet. No, Steve, the issue Rob with that claim is when it comes to somebody presenting as trans, that's a lot different than actually being trans, right? You could be trans internally and so like suppress that, right? You can have gender identity disorder and so not present yourself as the gender you identify as. They call it like a boy-moting. This one comes in from Sunflower. Says Vadim, have you ever seen Space Jam? I have seen Space Jam and I do believe I can fly. They said the magic water bottle only works when it's presented as a magical elixir. Yes. Well, it's been a while since I've seen Space Jam so I don't know what the reference there is. I was hoping you guys would get it because I didn't either. I can't listen to it. Yeah. I guess I just want to briefly inform everybody that Michael Jordan excuse me is better than LeBron James and I will fight anybody on that. This one coming in from Not A Chump says if a 12-year-old had body integrity dysphoria and felt they were born with a hand that didn't belong to them, should they have the option to remove it? Nope. No. I mean if it's an imaginary hand, if it's an imaginary hand, then I'm not that opposed to getting rid of it. So next. Gotcha. I think they mean they have a hand just like you or I but they have this... I have never heard of body integrity dysphoria but they're saying that the person apparently has a belief of like this isn't the hand I'm supposed to have. It's like someone... I mean show me some sort of studies that say that that is a real thing like where we're not talking about age. This person is basically making an elaborate attack helicopter joke here. It's not really to... It's a troll so let's move on. Yeah so with body dysphoria and that it's not... Yeah but the person said body dysphoria, didn't they? Which is just not real. Those are very different things. Sure. For example, there have been stories where people for example have said that they felt that they wanted to be blind or that all sorts of things that people have done they thought that they had an extra limb. That's true. It's very rare but it's true those people have existed but it's good to get the concession that you think that there needs to be a significant body of scientific evidence before we allow people to have these sorts of alterations to their body. Removing a hand is not the same as puberty blockers. It's both interactions that affect the national voice about someone we grew up. It's good to know. It's different. We would have laughed just like we would have left 20 years from now we might be having you on this panel saying of course they should be allowed to chop off the hand. The APA says it's okay. Just like 20 years ago. Right. Like I love when people want to sound reasonable. It's like oh yeah yeah it doesn't matter if the evidence is there or not. It doesn't matter if places like the NHS say that this is something that we don't have scientific evidence to recommend. Oh it's just different. It's okay this time and it's different in other situations. The truth is that at least this is a good question. It's very different. It's it gets you to admit that you need it gets you to admit that you need scientific justification and evidence and studies before you justify alterations to the body. Especially for children. And the fact that you don't think that those exist just beyond me especially since Synth has contrary to what you said he has provided some. Anyway next question. This one coming in from do appreciate your question. Got that one. So we'll get into the standard questions. Forward tribe says my son let's see has kind dysphoria. I think this is something that actually does fit Vadim's point earlier about it being like an attack helicopter type of thing. Todo Kaka says different question for all and we'll end with this question says is trans physiological or psychological in their nature or in your guys opinion. Sorry. I would I mean now granted I'm not you know some expert or anything like that so I don't want to pretend that I am. But personally in fact what I want you know I wanted to get to some more philosophically inclined stuff that I never did get to but I do think that it is a psychological thing. I think that it is I don't know what exactly it is because like I said I'm not an expert but I think it is a sign of some very serious psychological trauma. And that's that's obviously my own opinion but I would I would be based on data right. You have any sources to say it's based on trauma. Well I do certainly have a lot of things that indicate that people who are put in situations for example like you really not just trans in general but LGBT in general there does tend to be links with childhood abuse with links with obviously my questions just now. No I was just saying that there is links to like people who have these different things. Does Rob want to answer the question because I want to crack it answering this as well. Sure if you want me to answer first let's go for it. I'm not sure exactly what the answer I think that it will be psychological that it's more of a mental disorder illness but it could theoretically be a physical illness. This would be how you would determine if we could do scans of the brain and determine that it is actually accurate that we're able to show this is a male brain this is a female brain and it doesn't match up with the biological reality then that would be a physiological illness if we can't do that then it's probably a mental illness. The problem that people have is because there are a lot of people that claim that have symptoms of gender dysphoria or that maybe claim to be gender dysphoria that even if we could do a brain scan what do we do to those then that don't show up as trans on the brain scan? Do we say they're grifting? They're not really trans because it's just mental. Gender dysphoria and being trans are the same thing. No I understand it kind of is though because the definition is gender dysphoria is the mental illness that comes with the anxiety or the word they use I believe is the there's some word they use like disaffectedness or you know stress that comes with that how do you know that you're trans if you don't have any uncomfort? Okay well can we leave that as a rhetorical question for you? I can so I can answer because I feel like I feel like James wants to wrap this up am I wrong? Sure. Shortly. Yeah okay so from my limited knowledge I would say that I I think it's a bit of both I mean we do have some studies and and you know they have shown that in some cases that that you know either trans males or trans females have brains that correspond that are different than their birth sex that are more akin to the gender the gender that they you know prefer so the whole thing with that is is that like sometimes our psychology or what's going on in our brain it can become a physiological thing so I don't know if if I mean I would think that they have the capability of that they're at least being born with their brains like that or those brains changing very quickly because we do have cases of very young children who have severe dysphoria so yeah I mean I guess my answer the question is is that I think it's a little bit of both and it's definitely an interesting question I think that as the years progress we'll have a better way to answer that yeah so actually we have a a study by Nguyen I'm from the same parable Nguyen probably Nguyen yep that's it yeah from 2018 that does show a it's a neurological basis for what seems to be gender dysphoria even before hormone treatment you can see that there is a there are aspects of the brain that look more like the identified sex than natal sex this is not all of them obviously there are things like the I believe the sexually sexual dimorphic lobe I think it's called has a a tendency to look more like your natal sex than your identified sex regardless so there are ways question on that because really we could do it after the debate that's fine absolutely yeah this may be an opportunity I have to tell you folks if you want to hear more if you want to hear Rob's question if you want to hear the answers from Synth and Vadim and if you want to hear more from CJ as well as on these issues click on their links in the description we really appreciate our guest folks and so hey if you're like oh who's this like those are interesting arguments so yeah well you can click on their links down below and that includes if you're listening via the podcast so I want to say thank you very much Synth, Vadim, Rob and CJ it has been a true pleasure to host you guys tonight thank you so much yeah thank you absolutely it's a loby it's a loby it's a loby 100% I will be right back in just a moment folks with a post credit scene letting you know about upcoming debates but as mentioned we do appreciate our guests and so you can find their links below I'll be back in just a moment hang tight ladies and gentlemen very excited to be with you want to say thanks so much for hanging out with us it's always a pleasure we appreciate our guests so much they're linked in the description as mentioned but also have to let you know folks announcements big things coming up things we're excited about one this Friday just two days away you don't want to miss it T-Jump and Dr. Ben Burgess will be debating capitalism versus socialism the classic debate we're excited about that it's going to be a lot of fun also though this Saturday we are resurrecting an old topic that we haven't had on for a while you probably know what it is but nonetheless my dear friends want to let you know if it's your first time here at modern day modern day debate we are a neutral platform hosting debates on science, religion and politics so that everybody can make their case on a level playing field that is absolutely important to us that's the vision we are pursuing and determined to fulfill we are excited as folks I suspect that maybe around tomorrow probably by tomorrow late afternoon we may hit the 50,000 subscriber mark which thank you folks the point of me bringing that up is to say thank you and to let you know we're going to have a thank you 50,000 subscribers celebration stream to say thank you so much for all of your support you guys I am really excited about that right now folks I am pumped that we are at 49,964 so if you haven't subscribed yet join get on the train folks we are going places we're excited about the future and it's going to be huge and so believe me folks we are very passionate about fulfilling that vision here and we are committed to it for the long run so want to say we will announce the big stuff tomorrow during that celebration thank you stream I suspect it'll be tomorrow I don't want to be presumptuous I mean maybe it'll like sl