Welcome to the Quillett Podcast. I'm your host Jonathan Kay, a senior editor at

Quillett. Quillett is where free thought lives. We are an independent

grassroots platform for heterodox ideas and fearless commentary.

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articles and early access to Colette social events. And this week we'll be

taking a look at the controversial topic of gender transition in children.

And I say controversial because among the general public, there are all sorts of views on this

subject.

Notwithstanding the fact that many journalists, academics, and even many politicians

sometimes act as if there's only one legitimate viewpoint on the subject, which is the path

of unquestioning trans affirmation.

And as one of my guests today, Psychotherapist Stella O'Malley

acknowledges,

gender transition sometimes does prove to be the correct choice for a small minority of individuals

afflicted with severe gender dysphoria even though it can mean dangerous surgeries and

lifelong drug regimes. But as Stella argues in a new book,

when kids say they're trans, a guide for parents,

co-authored with two fellow psychotherapists,

Sashaayad and Lisa Marciano, there are serious problems with a policy of reflexive and unquestioning trans affirmation, a policy that became the officially sanctioned approach in many Western jurisdictions in recent years.

She argues that parents need to assert their understanding of who their children are, including

in situations when they suspect that a child's trans-self conception is a constructed identity that

...