Name: Joe Rogan Experience #1520 - Dr. Debra Soh
Uploaded: 2020-08-05T19:00:07.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1520 - Dr. Debra Soh' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-08-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #1520 - Dr. Debra Soh' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-08-05. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #1520 - Dr. Debra Soh

Three, two, one. Hello, Deborah. Hi. We were just talking. You're locked up in
Toronto. You were
thinking about flying here, but they fill the planes now, you were saying,
which is a little
disturbing. I did not know they're doing that. Yeah, they usually would leave
the middle seat
open, but as of about a month or so ago, they book it fully now. So I was super
excited. I'm
so sad that I can't be there with you because I've been counting down the days
and I was thinking
I have to at least be in LA to do Joe's show, but it was just a bit scared.
Yeah. Well,
it's scary. It's weird. I mean, how many people have you known that have caught
it now?
Actually, nobody. Isn't that wild? That's crazy. Everybody I know knows at
least one or two
people. I don't know anyone. So I'm very, very lucky. I'm up to nine friends.
Nine friends have
gotten it. Wild. Yeah. Two of them got it bad. Yeah. Two of them got it really
bad to the point
where they were hospitalized. Um, but yeah, it's, uh, one of them was an older
guy and one
of them is a guy who was 45 who just was run my friend, Michael Yo, who's just
run down. He
was like just really exhausted from too much traveling and too much. I mean, it
was a really
crazy schedule that he was on and he wound up catching it. He, he, he had it
bad. He was
hospitalized for a week. Oh no. Is he doing okay now? Yeah. He's fine now. Uh,
but his
endurance is really low. Like his, uh, lung capacity suffered. That's the thing
because
when this happened, I felt like, okay, everything has to stop and I have to
take care of myself
just to be, we take it for granted, right? When you're healthy. But the minute
something
like this happens, you, this is something that I would have never even thought
about.
Are you taking a lot of vitamin D? No, I'm actually, everyone has been telling
me to
take vitamin D. I take omega. Well, that's good. Um, but you should, you should
really
vitamin C and vitamin D are critical and zinc. Zinc is critical. Um, but
vitamin D in particular,
they did a study, uh, several studies, actually, uh, Dr. Rhonda Patrick was on
the podcast talking
about it. And she said that there was several studies that show that in the
people that were
in the ICU with COVID more than 80% of them were insufficient when their
vitamin D levels
and only 4% were sufficient. Yeah. So it's not, it's, you know, it's not a
prevent all. It's
not, it's not provable, you know, but it's, there's gotta be some sort of a
correlation.
I feel like if you're giving me personalized advice, I should probably take it.
Cause I'm sure
a lot of people would pay a lot of money for this. Um, I don't think they would.
I think
a few people would probably, but, uh, I've talked to enough people that I think,
uh, vitamin
D, zinc and vitamin C seem to be critical, but just overall health is very
important. I mean,
it's, it's one of the things that, um, my fan, Andrew Schultz were saying that
we was exposed
by this, uh, pandemic, the, the vulnerabilities of our economic system and the
vulnerabilities
of our health system. Like human beings have, there's too many of us that are
just not well.
We're not, we don't take care of ourselves. So when something like this happens,
you don't
just get sick. You get, you know, you could, you could die from it. Whereas, uh,
the vast
majority of people that get it, you know, they're not going to die from it, but
there's enough
that it's a significant number. It's scary stuff.
Yeah. Who could have predicted that this was ever going to happen?
Not me. So what's it like in Toronto these days?
It, it hasn't been bad. We're almost back to normal. So that's been very
exciting.
Yeah. For me, I've been writing this book for the last year. So my life hasn't
actually
changed that much, which probably sounds really crazy. But when you're writing
a book, you're
literally inside working all the time.
Yeah. So explain to people what the book is.
So the book is called the end of gender. And before I go any further, I'm going
to explain
the title because some people, I think misinterpret what I, when I announced it
on social media,
some people were getting upset because I think they thought I was taking a very,
very far left
progressive view. And I consider myself to be a liberal. I'm definitely not far
left, but
you know, I have liberal values. I'm pro-science. And so the end of gender, I
think people thought
that I meant, I was saying that gender is basically whatever you want it to be.
It's based solely
in self-identification. You know, there's no tethering to biology. And that is
not what I'm
saying with the book at all. And I think if anyone's ever read my columns or
seen my appearances
or they listened to the talk that I had with you last time I was on your show,
that's definitely
not what I'm saying. I'm saying the complete opposite, that the fact that
science denial
and misinformation about gender is so prominent now is actually affecting, is
really poorly affecting
our ability to understand gender. And that's leading to the demise of our
understanding of
it in an accurate way.
If you don't mind, just to start things off, will you please give your
credentials and tell
people what you do?
Yeah. So I have a PhD in sexual neuroscience research. I made the transition
from being
an academic sex researcher to being a journalist. So now I write about the
science of sex and
gender. I write about the politicization of science and academic censorship.
And so now I
have this book out and I can talk a bit about how I got here, if that would be
helpful or...
Sure, sure.
Yeah. Yeah. So, when I was doing my PhD, I very much, I loved being a sex
researcher. I
really thought I was going to stay in academia. And in the last few years, I
noticed that there
had been a change in the climate in terms of what people could study, what
people could talk
about as scientific experts. And one area in particular was about gender
transition in
children. So every single mainstream news piece was saying that for these
children who say
they're born in the wrong body, the best approach for them would be early
transitioning. So that
means to take on a name, a new name, identify as the opposite sex, usually get
a haircut, start
dressing like the opposite sex. But from a scientific perspective, all of the
research actually shows
that most of these kids, the vast majority of them are more likely to grow up
to be gay in
adulthood. They're not going to be transgender. And at that time, there's
literally maybe one
or two news articles that called into question this narrative of early
transitioning. So I wrote
an op-ed about this, citing the scientific research. And I asked my colleagues
and mentors in academia,
you know, what do you think? I knew that there was going to be some backlash to
it. And one of my
mentors said to me, because I said, should I wait until I have tenure to put
something like this out? And
he said, nowadays, tenure is not going to protect you. So that sealed my
decision. I published the piece.
And then from there, I made the transition to journalism. And I haven't looked
back.
It's a very strange time when it comes to talking about certain subjects,
because it doesn't matter
what the science is, there's a there, there are specific narratives that you
have to adhere to in
today's climate. You know, I like you am also left. But when you when it comes
to saying like far left,
like far left is a different thing now than it used to be. Far left used to be,
I mean, 10, just 10,
15 years ago, it was a different animal. And I knew a lot of people that are
far left. Now, far left,
I associate with lunacy. It's like, I look at it the same way I look at far
right, I look at far
right extremists and far left extremists. But something happened where far left
ideology has
permeated our culture when it comes to gender. And I don't understand it. If
you don't adhere to this
ideology, people want to say that you have no compassion, you're evil, you're
bigoted. I had
Abigail Shearer on the podcast recently. And she has a little Abigail. She's
great. And she's very brave.
And I saw what happens when you go against this narrative by having her on. Men's
Health wrote a
piece about me saying I'm fanning the flames of hate because she was talking
about a 4,000% increase,
4,000% increase in teenage girls identifying as trans and rapid onset gender
dysphoria, which is real.
I mean, this is a real scientific phenomenon. It's 70 times what you would see
in the general
population in terms of people identifying as transgender. It's amazing. She was
talking about
this in this very specific way, talking about awkward teenage girls and about
how these girls have
really odd situations in terms of the way they deal with people socially. And
then all of a sudden,
they're praised for deciding that they're trans. And then they get these
clusters of friends that also
decide that they're trans, which is very strange. It's just a very strange
phenomena, but you're not
even allowed to talk about it. So if Men's Health, which is, it's a fucking men's
magazine, is going to
write articles calling you a hateful person because you're discussing it. There
was no hate in that podcast
at all. It was just discussing it. Like, what is causing this? Why is this? And
what can be done?
And why are we so quick to just... I mean, we can assume that people are
troubled in all sorts of
different ways, but we can't assume they're ever troubled when it comes to
gender. It's very bizarre.
I think what you were saying with why it's gone so far left, I do think a lot
of this is coming from
empathy, which is a good thing. And I have to say, you know, with regard to the
issue of transitioning
children, I do support tradition in adults. I think it can help adults who are
transgender. I think if
you were an adult, it's your decision, it's your body, it's no one's place to
tell you what to do.
But I think a lot of this is coming from... So I grew up in the gay community
and I remember seeing
how homophobic people could be toward my friends. And I think things have
changed. Things have gotten
better in some ways. I think homophobia still exists. And we can talk about
that because I do talk about
how that affects a lot of what we're seeing in the book. But I think for a lot
of people, they look at
that and they say, okay, we were wrong about that. We were wrong to treat gay
people differently. We were
wrong to say that being gay is something you can change. So now they've gone
completely in the
opposite direction saying, okay, no matter what anyone says with regard to
their identity,
with regard to their gender, this is something that we should not challenge. We
should fully support.
And if you question it in any way, even in the most nuanced or sensitive way,
as I try to,
and as I think you do, that's still not acceptable. Yeah. That's what's strange.
It's an ideology.
It's rigid. It's like a religion. It is. It is. I think I find people who are,
you know, middle of the road,
they're not sure what to think. If they read my work or they talk to me, they
say, oh, wow, I never,
I never realized that. I didn't know the science said that. And they changed
their perspective. But
I think for some people, if they are very much invested in the identity or very,
very invested
in activism, or for whatever reason, this ideology means something to them, it's,
you cannot, you just
cannot reason with them. It doesn't matter what the science says, they will
find something to pick
at. And especially with the assistance, which is that, that the research I was
mentioning where it
shows that most kids will not feel gender dysphoric anymore when they reach puberty.
They, they just,
people, some people cannot accept it and they will call you transphobic. They'll
call you bigoted. And,
you know, I don't think I'm any of those things. I'm really just trying to help
prevent these children
from making potentially a very bad decision that they're going to regret. And
esp