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You're listening to KFI AM six forty
on demand. Welcome back to the Doctor

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Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six
forty. You know, every semester I

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get a little bit nervous when I
do my lecture on gender. I do

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it in my developmental psychology class because
acquiring a gender identity is part of our

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development. I do it in my
Introduction to Psychology class because students are being

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introduced to all these various concepts in
psychology. And I certainly do it in

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my health class as we talk about
the biological piece as well. I think

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that our culture in general sometimes has
confusion about three separate concepts. One is

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gender identity, the gender somebody feels
like they are male, female, non

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binary, or the gender role activities
that traditionally are occupations that traditionally we've said,

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are you know what men do or
what women do? Gender roles are

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normally taught, they're social and they'mally
taught in households. And then sexual orientation,

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which is completely different, and that's
what gender or what sex one is

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physically attracted to. And just because
you know one of these constructs, somebody's

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gender identity, gender role or sexual
orientation does not mean that you know the

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other because they may not be connected. That's important to understand. One of

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the things that has kind of come
up in our media and in politics is

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this idea that gender is one hundred
percent a cultural social construct that if you

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can and people are doing it,
they're literally having babies and saying they'll announce

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their own gender later when they grow
up. Right, well, I do

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want to say this that they're at
least seventy different recognized variations in human sex

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chromosomes. Right, So if we
say that female male is xx and male

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is x Y, you can have
an X and part of a Y,

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and a Y and part of an
X, or an extraor Y or a

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missing one, et cetera. And
that helps create that sort of programs internal

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structures, external genitalia, and what
happens at puberty secondary sex characteristics. Right,

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So when a baby is born,
they the doctor looks at only one

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thing, they're external genitalia, and
assigns a gender to them. Now,

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it's possible to be born with a
vagina and testes tucked up in there,

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and then at puberty you get a
big surge of testosterone. It is possible

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to be born with a penis and
ovaries tucked inside you. Right, nobody

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knows what percentage of people are intersex, as we call features of both biologically,

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somewhere between one to two percent,
So that's nothing to sniff at.

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Okay, there are some cultures in
the world where a third gender or a

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third category of gender is completely acceptable. There are cultural ways, and in

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fact, in my next segment,
I'm going to have a guest who on

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who was raised in Thailand and actually
raised as a third gender. But it

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is ironic that we complain in our
culture that we are too binary. We're

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putting people in one box or another. And yet when a child or young

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adult expresses features of a different gender, we immediately say, well, you

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must be trans. We have to
diagnose this, we have to do some

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medical things. Right, I'm of
two minds of this. I don't know

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really what the answer is, because
I really believe in loving people and respecting

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people no matter where they're at or
how they identify, and just wanting to

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tell them you're cool with me.
I mean, I think that's the most

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important. You know, those parents
that have babies that are born and they

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say, well, we're not going
to sign them a gender. We're going

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to wait to see. They make
sure that they give their cures toys that

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are represent to all the genders,
so they'll probably give them pink, fluffy

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dolls and barbies and and you know, guns and action figures and bulldozers,

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et cetera. But the research shows
that sex typed toys toy preferences are actually

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very early, that boys and girls
generally prefer playing with toys that are typically

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associated with their biological tech sex,
like you know, boys, toy trucks,

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girls dolls. Right, And also
this sex typed toy preference shows up

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really early. It shows up as
early as six months old. Okay,

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so you know a lot of this
is biological. Right now, it is

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true that there is a huge portion
of our population, almost as many as

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have green eyes, who are intersex, have features of both. And I

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believe that some of them, there's
actually a movement on or many of them

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to live as a sort of dual
gendered person. There's a woman I follow

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on TikTok who's so interesting as you
follow. Her name is Julie Mayfield,

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and she very clearly says I am
not trans. Her voice is fairly deep,

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but She explains that she actually is
forty seven xx y, which means

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forty six chromosomes are what we normally
have. She has forty seven because she

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has an extra y chromosome. And
she was raised male because that was the

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sex that was assigned to her.
But at a certain point in her life

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her doctor said that she should swing
to the female side because of she mentioned

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a bunch of health concerns lupus and
ostroporosis, et cetera. And so she

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explains to the world, I am
not trans. I'm an intersex person who

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is swinging a little bit to another
side of who I naturally am. I

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think the most important thing that we
need to consider in a culture, and

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this whole topic has become so politicized, is that, you know, sex

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chromosomes are programmed to do something at
birth and something else at puberty. And

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the main of treatment, I hate
to use that word treatment intervention for children

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who have some gender confusion is puberty
blockers, something to stop puberty. I'm

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not sure that I completely agree with
that. I was reading in the New

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York Times recently they reported on a
study to show that now we're starting to

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see the puberty blockers actually can cause
a loss in bone density. Anyway,

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I don't have the answers except that
I love all people, no matter where

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they are in their transition or not. Whether if you tell me who you

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are, I'm going with that,
and I love you and respect you when

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we come back. I've got a
guest who has stronger feelings than I do

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on this, and she self identifies
as a third gender. You're listening to

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the Doctor Wendy Walls Show a KFI
AM six forty were live everywhere on the

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iHeartRadio app. You're listening to KFI
AM six forty on demand. Welcome back

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to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on
KFI AM six forty one, Live everywhere

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on the iHeartRadio App. Well,
there's probably not a human anywhere in America

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who doesn't have a trans family member. These days, there's a lot of

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debate that goes on in our culture
about how much of it is biological,

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how much of it is psychological,
why we all need to be more accepting

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of trans rights. But I think
we would be remiss if we only focused

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on biology, that we don't actually
exist alone in a vacuum as just this,

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you know, squishy bit of biology. We exist in a culture,

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we exist among people, we exist, and we also share values and beliefs.

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So I want to feature every kind
of perspective that I can when it

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comes to have greater understanding of the
trans and indeed the LGBTQ community. And

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with that said, I have a
very special guest today. Her name is

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Amanda Covitana, and she's a biracial
tri cultural writer who grew up in Bangkok

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and she immigrated to California back in
nineteen sixty eight. Back then, she

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was a gender non conforming child living
in Thailand. Now she was fortunate because

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there a third gender exists and is
accepted. She came of age in San

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Francisco as a lesbian and that introducer
to the gay community and the evolving gay

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liberation movement. What's really cool is
she has the skill sets of many traditional

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genders. She draws some of it
from her engineering father, teaching her how

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to be mechanical and fix things.
I hope she can come home to my

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house someday and fix some stuff.
And her mother's profession, thank goodness,

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her mother was a child therapist and
family counselor. That gave her an understanding

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of her own development and neurodivergent brain
styles. Amanda is the author of two

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memoirs. Her recent book, called
The Unexpected Penis Conversations on the Gender Trail,

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is a primer and memoir of her
observations of the transgender phenomenon. Welcome,

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Amanda Cottavana. Did I say it
right, Covtana? Yes, thank

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you very much. So tell me
about why you decided to write this particular

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memoir at this time. I've been
in the LGBT community for some thirty five

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years and being suddenly everything is all
about trans and that was fine to begin

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with, but then when trans started
to say, oh, but we we

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are actually the opposite sex, that
alerted me because it was so different from

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what had happened before, when trands
were just like, oh, well,

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we're They never claimed before that they
were the opposite sex. So I was

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trying to get to the bottom of
it, and the more I researched,

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the more I realized that people,
my peers in the LGBT community really had

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no idea all of the complexities and
implications of these new gender identity ideology teaching

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that there is an innate gender identity
and which implies that your body is all

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wrong. That not already was a
red flag. And then to say that

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we have to treat those who think
they are the opposite sex as the opposite

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sex, that was another red flag. And now that we are putting it

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into law, we are encoding it
into California law, especially that gender identity

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takes priority over biological sex. That
has even more repercussions on the society at

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large. Well, well, that's
where I began, that's where you began.

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Well, we certainly know that you
know, there are lots of different

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variations in sex chromosomes, and it's
estimated that about one percent some people say

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as high as two percent of our
population has biological features of both sex chromosomes.

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Right, but you talk about something
really interesting. You grew up in

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a culture that benefits from this third
gender idea, and it sounds like what

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I'm hearing from you is, why
don't we just accept people where they are

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instead of medicalizing and pathologizing where they
are and saying we need to treat them

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and change their body. Is that
what you're saying? Oh, yes,

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exactly. And that was my first
inkling that this was a very strange thing

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to do to medicalize the condition.
I mean, as a gender non conforming

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child, I was your rough and
tumbled somemboy, rode my bicycle through the

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household, and it was my relatives. When I was about say eight,

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one aunt took me aside and said, you have the spirit of a boy.

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Now in trans language, that would
sound exactly like you have the soul,

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you have the gender identity of a
boy. But in Thailand, because

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we have a reincarnation theology, I
understood it as your spirit was once a

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man, and now you are born
as a woman in order to learn more

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about your past life as a man, where you may not have had such

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compassion for women. So here's an
opportunity to learn more. And from that

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perspective as a child, I was
like, cool, I have experienced.

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I'm not just a little girl who
knows nothing. I have some innate wisdom

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from a previous life that I can
use in this life. And I am

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allowed now I'm allowed to be the
tomboy that I was. And that is

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a story. It's such a beautiful
way to think of it. Instead of

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somebody saying to you you're in the
wrong body, you need to be fixed,

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instead it is you have great wisdom
and now you are going to learn

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more. We have to go to
a break, Amanda. When we come

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back, I want to talk more
about some researchers and some are being shunned

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in academia who are saying that this
transgender movement is sometimes a little bit of

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social contagion that's happening among teenagers.
We'll talk about this when we come back.

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My guest is Amanda Covitana. She's
a biracial tri cultural writer who grew

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up in Bangkok, where they recognize
a third gender. You're listening to The

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Doctor Wendy Walls Show and KFI AM
six forty. We Live everywhere on the

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iHeartRadio app. You're listening to KFI
AM six forty on demand. Welcome back

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to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on
KFI AM six forty. We live everywhere

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on the iHeartRadio app. I want
to start this segment by saying that I

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believe that every single human deserves to
be respected, and if they have a

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pronoun that they want me to call
them by, I am happy to do

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that because whatever identity people have chosen
or feel they are, I'm just going

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to respect you as an individual.
But if we zoom out and look at

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really what's going on in our culture, the trans movement that has become so

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politicized, and I think it should
be an individual choice and government has nothing

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to do with it. Is something
that many people are talking about. Writer

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Amanda Caveatana is here. She's biracial, tricultural LGBTQ. And Amanda, what

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do you think about the idea that
maybe some in the trans movement are actually

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victims of social contagion, meaning as
teenage it's a cool thing to do because

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their groups doing it. I felt
that that was a case right away because

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I went to a girls school and
at the time when eating disorders were very

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popular, shall we say, and
girls are just not a stable population.

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They are experimenting, they are trying
to handle becoming sexualized, becoming sex objects.

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We're just not given that much to
go on just growing up as a

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girl. So the opportunity to opt
out of being a girl is just huge,

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and it's one that I feel I
would have certainly considered because it's another

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story, just like I was told
a story and I understood it to be

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a religious concept that I had been
a spirit from another life as a man.

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So to be told another story that
maybe you are in the wrong body.

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It's a similar kind of opportunity,
but in the American sense it leads

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to far more dangerous medicalization and some
not flexible. It doesn't allow growth.

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It boxes you up even more because
it's so invested in stereotypes. Right,

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it's almost it's so binary. It's
making people one to another binary. You

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mentioned that teenage girls are unstable with
a teenage girls and born are going through

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great identity formation and the influence of
their peer group is enormous. If you

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ever listen to the podcast of doctor
Deborah So who wrote the book The End

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of Gender, she firmly believes that
there is a lot of social contagion going

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on. But if any scientists come
out with a study saying, hey,

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at this rate is much higher than
intersects people in the population, and we

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think there's some social contagion, then
they get completely slammed by the media and

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told, oh, you're anti trans, which let's be clear, neither you

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or I are anti trans. We
just want to understand all the different manifestations

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of it, and we don't want
children to be hurt. Right, Yes,

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yes, children need to play,
They need to be able to explore.

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I was in theater and I had
the wonderful opportunity of playing the artful

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dodger in Oliver, and that just
allowed me so much to express what I

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would call my buts lesbian personality as
an adult. You know, one of

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my daughters, when she was young, woke up one morning, I think

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she was like three or four,
and she said, call me Ryan.

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My name is Ryan. And she
went through her closet and only put on

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things that were navy blue or brown
and jeans. And this went on for

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a good two weeks, and we
just called her Ryan because that's what she

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told us to. But nobody said
to her, you must be in the

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wrong body, maybe you're trans We
just went with her fun because it was

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fun. And then after two weeks
I called he Ryan one day and she

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said, I'm not Ryan. She
gave me her real name. That's what

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children do. They experiment, Yes, and I had a boy name at

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summer camp, and all the girls
chose boy names too. It's a way

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that we experiment with gender. I
also know that if you go on YouTube

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and you search the word Dan transitioning, you will meet a lot of young

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people who are crying on YouTube because
at an early age they had their breasts

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removed or they had a full hysterectomy, and now they are feeling so sad

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because they're twenty five or twenty eight
years old. And the data on people

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who de transition is almost non existent
because nobody runs back to their doctor and

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says I'm going to stop taking my
hormones. They just stop taking their hormones,

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right, So we really don't know
how big this is, right,

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yes, and that's terribly tragic.
That is one of the motivations I have

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to speak out is because once you
do something so dramatic like that as cutting

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off your breast, which is the
most common surgery for even young people.

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And we have eleven suits lawsuits going
on right now in California, I think

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possibly further than California, of young
women who are suing their doctors and the

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young man whose case is extremely fought
with complications. What do you think the

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solution is for our culture? Where
are we in this we should be?

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I mean, in Thailand, we
have the sex change capital of the world

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before Americans took over, and the
LGBTQ community in Thailand warn and then at

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law was enacted to prevent such treatments
for miners by our recommendation, because young

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people change their minds. Let's just
wait so people develop right and become adults.

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It seems so common sense, and
it definitely is not anti trans Children

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can wear whatever clothes they want,
they can use whatever name they want,

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whatever pronoun they want. We will
continue to love them no matter what.

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But medical intervention before their brain is
fully developed. I kind of agree with

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you, Amanda. It's the process
of puberty that helps that along exactly.

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Delaying puberty doesn't solve the problem.
Puberty answers the question exactly exactly. Oh

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my goodness, Well, thank you
so much for speaking out. And I

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know that this topic is very controversial
right now, and again, I just

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want to say over and over again
how much I love every human and whatever

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stage of their development or transition,
you have my deep respect. If you're

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listening, I love trans people.
But as a culture, we have to

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find a way to make sure that
children are not harmed. Amanda Covitana,

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your book is called The Unexpected Penis
Conversations on the Gender Trail. Can people

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get it on Amazon online anywhere?
It's on the Kindle platform, ebook and

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paperback. Wonderful. Thank you so
much for being with us. You're listening

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to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show and
KFI AM six forty were live everywhere on

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00:23:17.200 --> 00:23:22.680
the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to
KFI AM six forty on demand. Welcome

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00:23:22.720 --> 00:23:26.079
back to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show
on KFI AM six forty. Wow,

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00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:29.799
we're in the home stretch of The
Doctor Wendy Wall Show. Kayla. It

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goes so fast. I'm still trying
to digest my Thanksgiving food. It flew

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by, and we learned a lot. And yes, it helped to think.

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It helped digest that they sing fa
It helped that was That was a

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tough topic for me because I don't
want to disrespect anybody, but I want

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to try to find like a place
where we can all just have conversations and

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greater understanding of things. Anyway,
I want to close with a topic that

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is dear to my heart, not
in a positive way. But you know,

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when I was dating, I learned
later in therapy that I have what's

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known as an anxious ambivalent attachment style. Not anymore. I've healed partly through

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my close attachment to my children and
the fact that I was able to pick

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a partner now who has a secure
attachment style. But what an anxious ambivalent

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attachment style is. It's somebody who
is longing for love and closeness and begging

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for love and closeness, but if
they ever meet somebody who actually gives it

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to them, they're like, Oh, he's too nice. Ooh, it's

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like go away, that's too much
yuck. Right, So I spent most

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of my young single years dating emotionally
avoidant men because they satisfied my longing.

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It's like I wasn't in love with
love. I was in love with longing,

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and I stayed in a state of
pain, hoping to quote unquote get

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them to love me. And it
was only years later that I realized that

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there was a common denominator in all
my relationships, and it was me.

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I was choosing them. I was
projecting my own childhood trauma on them.

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But in order for me to sort
of overcome this, I had to stop

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and lay out a plant, like
how to spot somebody who has an avoidant

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attachment style. You've probably heard me
tell this story before. It's very common.

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The four stages of personal growth.
Right, the first stage of personal

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growth is you're walking down the street, you don't see a hole, you

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fall in it. Okay, that
would be the regular avoidant playboy that I

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used to be attracted to. Don't
see the hole, fall in it.

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And then you next stage of personal
growth, you learn a little bit about

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your attachment style and your piece in
it. And then you walk down the

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street and you see that hole this
time, and you still fall in it.

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Right. I went through a bunch
of men like that where I'd be

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kicking myself going I saw this come
in, Why did I still go out

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with him? Right? And then
stage three of personal growth is when you're

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walking down that street, you see
the whole, and now you take very

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00:26:02.160 --> 00:26:07.440
careful steps to avoid falling in the
hole. That's when you say I'm not

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gonna go out with you, or
I'm gonna break up with you, or

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00:26:08.920 --> 00:26:14.200
I'm not going to be attracted to
that person because they have all the signs,

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the red flags that they might be
emotionally avoidant. And then the fourth

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00:26:18.039 --> 00:26:22.680
step is you take a different street. So when I met Julio, he

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00:26:22.880 --> 00:26:27.200
was so different different. I'd never
met a guy that was light and funny

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00:26:27.440 --> 00:26:32.279
and cuddly and warm I'm like,
men can be cuddly and warm. I

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00:26:32.319 --> 00:26:37.920
had these stoic statues because they were
always avoidant. So if you are on

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00:26:37.640 --> 00:26:44.240
stage two and you're trying to recognize
the whole, let me tell you what

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00:26:44.359 --> 00:26:48.319
an avoidant partner looks like. First
of all, the most common sign is

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00:26:48.359 --> 00:26:52.440
they don't open up to you.
They're emotionally unavailable, and when you try

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00:26:52.480 --> 00:26:56.480
to encourage them to open up,
you give them a safe space with your

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00:26:56.480 --> 00:27:02.200
discussions, you showcase your feelings to
them, They change the subject, they

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00:27:02.240 --> 00:27:06.759
disappear, they get mad at you. That's definitely somebody who has an avoidant

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00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:11.799
attachment style, and they're just not
comfortable even seeing your emotions. In fact,

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00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:18.039
your emotions often incite anger in them. Here's another way you can tell

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somebody has an avoidant attachment style.
Their past is a bit of a mystery.

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They don't talk about it. They
don't talk about their past relationships.

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They don't talk about it. They're
just very general. They'll say, yeah,

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00:27:30.920 --> 00:27:33.720
like we just have bad communication.
Uh huh, well what happened,

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00:27:33.759 --> 00:27:36.839
Like how long did you go to
We were together a few years? I

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00:27:36.839 --> 00:27:38.400
mean we broke up a couple times, but yeah, it just wasn't for

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00:27:38.480 --> 00:27:44.480
me, Like they just It's not
like they don't tell stories about the emotional

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00:27:44.519 --> 00:27:51.240
stuff that happened, right. Avoidant
people also regularly resort to sarcasm. Oh

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yeah, they love that sarcasm.
They turn everything into a weird joke or

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00:27:56.839 --> 00:28:00.920
laughing off and you're like, it's
like a serious, bad thing that happened

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00:28:00.920 --> 00:28:04.640
to them. Why are they making
such light about it. The other thing

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00:28:04.640 --> 00:28:08.880
avoidant people do is they avoid any
conversation about commitment, and they're very slow

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00:28:08.920 --> 00:28:14.119
to commit, and they act like
you're the needy one. Oh oh oh,

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00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:18.160
this is a big one. They
call you and their past girlfriends needy.

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I have to say, I have
never heard my Julio refer to any

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00:28:22.720 --> 00:28:26.720
woman in his life as ever having
been needy. You know what, we

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00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:30.559
all have healthy needs, healthy emotional
needs, and in a good relationship,

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you can showcase those safely. Right. The other thing is they hide behind

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00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:41.920
their technology, They hide behind their
cell phones. You never can reach them

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when you need them. That's an
avoidant person. When I told Julio I

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have a little anxiety around attachment.
If I reach out to you, can

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you get back to me right away? He said, sure? Is that

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00:28:51.839 --> 00:28:55.960
what you need great like he was
cool whatever. Right. And to this

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00:28:56.079 --> 00:29:00.759
day, if he's on a really
important business phone call, if I call

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00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:03.119
him, he has programmed a little
auto text that says on a call,

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00:29:03.240 --> 00:29:07.920
got to call you back, and
I know he will as soon as he

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gets off that phone. And the
last thing that avoidant people do is they

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don't really make a big effort in
relationships. You're doing all the work to

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try to make it happen, the
emotional work, the communication, the contact.

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So if you're maybe on stage two, now you know to recognize it

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and now it's time to call your
therapist. So you have a wingman or

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a wingwoman as you go to stage
three, where you learn to take a

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different street. I'll eventually be stage
four. And that brings another wonderful Doctor

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00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:41.640
Wendy Wall show to a close.
It is always my pleasure every Sunday to

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00:29:41.680 --> 00:29:45.000
be with you from seven to nine
pm. You can also follow me on

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00:29:45.039 --> 00:29:49.359
my social media. The handle everywhere
is at doctor Wendy Walsh. I also

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00:29:49.400 --> 00:29:52.920
have a really great Patreon group.
I encourage you to join us. Wednesdays

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00:29:52.960 --> 00:29:56.160
every night at six point thirty,
we have a zoom room that's so much

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00:29:56.160 --> 00:29:59.880
fun. That's Patreon dot com slash
Doctor Wendy Walsh, but I'll be here

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00:29:59.880 --> 00:30:03.279
for you every week on KFI.
You've been listening to The Doctor Wendy Wall

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00:30:03.319 --> 00:30:07.759
Show on KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app kf

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00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:10.920
I Am six forty on demand