You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand. Welcome back to the Doctor
Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. You know, every semester I
get a little bit nervous when I do my lecture on gender. I do
it in my developmental psychology class because acquiring a gender identity is part of our
development. I do it in my Introduction to Psychology class because students are being
introduced to all these various concepts in psychology. And I certainly do it in
my health class as we talk about the biological piece as well. I think
that our culture in general sometimes has confusion about three separate concepts. One is
gender identity, the gender somebody feels like they are male, female, non
binary, or the gender role activities that traditionally are occupations that traditionally we've said,
are you know what men do or what women do? Gender roles are
normally taught, they're social and they'mally taught in households. And then sexual orientation,
which is completely different, and that's what gender or what sex one is
physically attracted to. And just because you know one of these constructs, somebody's
gender identity, gender role or sexual orientation does not mean that you know the
other because they may not be connected. That's important to understand. One of
the things that has kind of come up in our media and in politics is
this idea that gender is one hundred percent a cultural social construct that if you
can and people are doing it, they're literally having babies and saying they'll announce
their own gender later when they grow up. Right, well, I do
want to say this that they're at least seventy different recognized variations in human sex
chromosomes. Right, So if we say that female male is xx and male
is x Y, you can have an X and part of a Y,
and a Y and part of an X, or an extraor Y or a
missing one, et cetera. And that helps create that sort of programs internal
structures, external genitalia, and what happens at puberty secondary sex characteristics. Right,
So when a baby is born, they the doctor looks at only one
thing, they're external genitalia, and assigns a gender to them. Now,
it's possible to be born with a vagina and testes tucked up in there,
and then at puberty you get a big surge of testosterone. It is possible
to be born with a penis and ovaries tucked inside you. Right, nobody
knows what percentage of people are intersex, as we call features of both biologically,
somewhere between one to two percent, So that's nothing to sniff at.
Okay, there are some cultures in the world where a third gender or a
third category of gender is completely acceptable. There are cultural ways, and in
fact, in my next segment, I'm going to have a guest who on
who was raised in Thailand and actually raised as a third gender. But it
is ironic that we complain in our culture that we are too binary. We're
putting people in one box or another. And yet when a child or young
adult expresses features of a different gender, we immediately say, well, you
must be trans. We have to diagnose this, we have to do some
medical things. Right, I'm of two minds of this. I don't know
really what the answer is, because I really believe in loving people and respecting
people no matter where they're at or how they identify, and just wanting to
tell them you're cool with me. I mean, I think that's the most
important. You know, those parents that have babies that are born and they
say, well, we're not going to sign them a gender. We're going
to wait to see. They make sure that they give their cures toys that
are represent to all the genders, so they'll probably give them pink, fluffy
dolls and barbies and and you know, guns and action figures and bulldozers,
et cetera. But the research shows that sex typed toys toy preferences are actually
very early, that boys and girls generally prefer playing with toys that are typically
associated with their biological tech sex, like you know, boys, toy trucks,
girls dolls. Right, And also this sex typed toy preference shows up
really early. It shows up as early as six months old. Okay,
so you know a lot of this is biological. Right now, it is
true that there is a huge portion of our population, almost as many as
have green eyes, who are intersex, have features of both. And I
believe that some of them, there's actually a movement on or many of them
to live as a sort of dual gendered person. There's a woman I follow
on TikTok who's so interesting as you follow. Her name is Julie Mayfield,
and she very clearly says I am not trans. Her voice is fairly deep,
but She explains that she actually is forty seven xx y, which means
forty six chromosomes are what we normally have. She has forty seven because she
has an extra y chromosome. And she was raised male because that was the
sex that was assigned to her. But at a certain point in her life
her doctor said that she should swing to the female side because of she mentioned
a bunch of health concerns lupus and ostroporosis, et cetera. And so she
explains to the world, I am not trans. I'm an intersex person who
is swinging a little bit to another side of who I naturally am. I
think the most important thing that we need to consider in a culture, and
this whole topic has become so politicized, is that, you know, sex
chromosomes are programmed to do something at birth and something else at puberty. And
the main of treatment, I hate to use that word treatment intervention for children
who have some gender confusion is puberty blockers, something to stop puberty. I'm
not sure that I completely agree with that. I was reading in the New
York Times recently they reported on a study to show that now we're starting to
see the puberty blockers actually can cause a loss in bone density. Anyway,
I don't have the answers except that I love all people, no matter where
they are in their transition or not. Whether if you tell me who you
are, I'm going with that, and I love you and respect you when
we come back. I've got a guest who has stronger feelings than I do
on this, and she self identifies as a third gender. You're listening to
the Doctor Wendy Walls Show a KFI AM six forty were live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand. Welcome back
to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty one, Live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio App. Well, there's probably not a human anywhere in America
who doesn't have a trans family member. These days, there's a lot of
debate that goes on in our culture about how much of it is biological,
how much of it is psychological, why we all need to be more accepting
of trans rights. But I think we would be remiss if we only focused
on biology, that we don't actually exist alone in a vacuum as just this,
you know, squishy bit of biology. We exist in a culture,
we exist among people, we exist, and we also share values and beliefs.
So I want to feature every kind of perspective that I can when it
comes to have greater understanding of the trans and indeed the LGBTQ community. And
with that said, I have a very special guest today. Her name is
Amanda Covitana, and she's a biracial tri cultural writer who grew up in Bangkok
and she immigrated to California back in nineteen sixty eight. Back then, she
was a gender non conforming child living in Thailand. Now she was fortunate because
there a third gender exists and is accepted. She came of age in San
Francisco as a lesbian and that introducer to the gay community and the evolving gay
liberation movement. What's really cool is she has the skill sets of many traditional
genders. She draws some of it from her engineering father, teaching her how
to be mechanical and fix things. I hope she can come home to my
house someday and fix some stuff. And her mother's profession, thank goodness,
her mother was a child therapist and family counselor. That gave her an understanding
of her own development and neurodivergent brain styles. Amanda is the author of two
memoirs. Her recent book, called The Unexpected Penis Conversations on the Gender Trail,
is a primer and memoir of her observations of the transgender phenomenon. Welcome,
Amanda Cottavana. Did I say it right, Covtana? Yes, thank
you very much. So tell me about why you decided to write this particular
memoir at this time. I've been in the LGBT community for some thirty five
years and being suddenly everything is all about trans and that was fine to begin
with, but then when trans started to say, oh, but we we
are actually the opposite sex, that alerted me because it was so different from
what had happened before, when trands were just like, oh, well,
we're They never claimed before that they were the opposite sex. So I was
trying to get to the bottom of it, and the more I researched,
the more I realized that people, my peers in the LGBT community really had
no idea all of the complexities and implications of these new gender identity ideology teaching
that there is an innate gender identity and which implies that your body is all
wrong. That not already was a red flag. And then to say that
we have to treat those who think they are the opposite sex as the opposite
sex, that was another red flag. And now that we are putting it
into law, we are encoding it into California law, especially that gender identity
takes priority over biological sex. That has even more repercussions on the society at
large. Well, well, that's where I began, that's where you began.
Well, we certainly know that you know, there are lots of different
variations in sex chromosomes, and it's estimated that about one percent some people say
as high as two percent of our population has biological features of both sex chromosomes.
Right, but you talk about something really interesting. You grew up in
a culture that benefits from this third gender idea, and it sounds like what
I'm hearing from you is, why don't we just accept people where they are
instead of medicalizing and pathologizing where they are and saying we need to treat them
and change their body. Is that what you're saying? Oh, yes,
exactly. And that was my first inkling that this was a very strange thing
to do to medicalize the condition. I mean, as a gender non conforming
child, I was your rough and tumbled somemboy, rode my bicycle through the
household, and it was my relatives. When I was about say eight,
one aunt took me aside and said, you have the spirit of a boy.
Now in trans language, that would sound exactly like you have the soul,
you have the gender identity of a boy. But in Thailand, because
we have a reincarnation theology, I understood it as your spirit was once a
man, and now you are born as a woman in order to learn more
about your past life as a man, where you may not have had such
compassion for women. So here's an opportunity to learn more. And from that
perspective as a child, I was like, cool, I have experienced.
I'm not just a little girl who knows nothing. I have some innate wisdom
from a previous life that I can use in this life. And I am
allowed now I'm allowed to be the tomboy that I was. And that is
a story. It's such a beautiful way to think of it. Instead of
somebody saying to you you're in the wrong body, you need to be fixed,
instead it is you have great wisdom and now you are going to learn
more. We have to go to a break, Amanda. When we come
back, I want to talk more about some researchers and some are being shunned
in academia who are saying that this transgender movement is sometimes a little bit of
social contagion that's happening among teenagers. We'll talk about this when we come back.
My guest is Amanda Covitana. She's a biracial tri cultural writer who grew
up in Bangkok, where they recognize a third gender. You're listening to The
Doctor Wendy Walls Show and KFI AM six forty. We Live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand. Welcome back
to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six forty. We live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. I want to start this segment by saying that I
believe that every single human deserves to be respected, and if they have a
pronoun that they want me to call them by, I am happy to do
that because whatever identity people have chosen or feel they are, I'm just going
to respect you as an individual. But if we zoom out and look at
really what's going on in our culture, the trans movement that has become so
politicized, and I think it should be an individual choice and government has nothing
to do with it. Is something that many people are talking about. Writer
Amanda Caveatana is here. She's biracial, tricultural LGBTQ. And Amanda, what
do you think about the idea that maybe some in the trans movement are actually
victims of social contagion, meaning as teenage it's a cool thing to do because
their groups doing it. I felt that that was a case right away because
I went to a girls school and at the time when eating disorders were very
popular, shall we say, and girls are just not a stable population.
They are experimenting, they are trying to handle becoming sexualized, becoming sex objects.
We're just not given that much to go on just growing up as a
girl. So the opportunity to opt out of being a girl is just huge,
and it's one that I feel I would have certainly considered because it's another
story, just like I was told a story and I understood it to be
a religious concept that I had been a spirit from another life as a man.
So to be told another story that maybe you are in the wrong body.
It's a similar kind of opportunity, but in the American sense it leads
to far more dangerous medicalization and some not flexible. It doesn't allow growth.
It boxes you up even more because it's so invested in stereotypes. Right,
it's almost it's so binary. It's making people one to another binary. You
mentioned that teenage girls are unstable with a teenage girls and born are going through
great identity formation and the influence of their peer group is enormous. If you
ever listen to the podcast of doctor Deborah So who wrote the book The End
of Gender, she firmly believes that there is a lot of social contagion going
on. But if any scientists come out with a study saying, hey,
at this rate is much higher than intersects people in the population, and we
think there's some social contagion, then they get completely slammed by the media and
told, oh, you're anti trans, which let's be clear, neither you
or I are anti trans. We just want to understand all the different manifestations
of it, and we don't want children to be hurt. Right, Yes,
yes, children need to play, They need to be able to explore.
I was in theater and I had the wonderful opportunity of playing the artful
dodger in Oliver, and that just allowed me so much to express what I
would call my buts lesbian personality as an adult. You know, one of
my daughters, when she was young, woke up one morning, I think
she was like three or four, and she said, call me Ryan.
My name is Ryan. And she went through her closet and only put on
things that were navy blue or brown and jeans. And this went on for
a good two weeks, and we just called her Ryan because that's what she
told us to. But nobody said to her, you must be in the
wrong body, maybe you're trans We just went with her fun because it was
fun. And then after two weeks I called he Ryan one day and she
said, I'm not Ryan. She gave me her real name. That's what
children do. They experiment, Yes, and I had a boy name at
summer camp, and all the girls chose boy names too. It's a way
that we experiment with gender. I also know that if you go on YouTube
and you search the word Dan transitioning, you will meet a lot of young
people who are crying on YouTube because at an early age they had their breasts
removed or they had a full hysterectomy, and now they are feeling so sad
because they're twenty five or twenty eight years old. And the data on people
who de transition is almost non existent because nobody runs back to their doctor and
says I'm going to stop taking my hormones. They just stop taking their hormones,
right, So we really don't know how big this is, right,
yes, and that's terribly tragic. That is one of the motivations I have
to speak out is because once you do something so dramatic like that as cutting
off your breast, which is the most common surgery for even young people.
And we have eleven suits lawsuits going on right now in California, I think
possibly further than California, of young women who are suing their doctors and the
young man whose case is extremely fought with complications. What do you think the
solution is for our culture? Where are we in this we should be?
I mean, in Thailand, we have the sex change capital of the world
before Americans took over, and the LGBTQ community in Thailand warn and then at
law was enacted to prevent such treatments for miners by our recommendation, because young
people change their minds. Let's just wait so people develop right and become adults.
It seems so common sense, and it definitely is not anti trans Children
can wear whatever clothes they want, they can use whatever name they want,
whatever pronoun they want. We will continue to love them no matter what.
But medical intervention before their brain is fully developed. I kind of agree with
you, Amanda. It's the process of puberty that helps that along exactly.
Delaying puberty doesn't solve the problem. Puberty answers the question exactly exactly. Oh
my goodness, Well, thank you so much for speaking out. And I
know that this topic is very controversial right now, and again, I just
want to say over and over again how much I love every human and whatever
stage of their development or transition, you have my deep respect. If you're
listening, I love trans people. But as a culture, we have to
find a way to make sure that children are not harmed. Amanda Covitana,
your book is called The Unexpected Penis Conversations on the Gender Trail. Can people
get it on Amazon online anywhere? It's on the Kindle platform, ebook and
paperback. Wonderful. Thank you so much for being with us. You're listening
to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show and KFI AM six forty were live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand. Welcome
back to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six forty. Wow,
we're in the home stretch of The Doctor Wendy Wall Show. Kayla. It
goes so fast. I'm still trying to digest my Thanksgiving food. It flew
by, and we learned a lot. And yes, it helped to think.
It helped digest that they sing fa It helped that was That was a
tough topic for me because I don't want to disrespect anybody, but I want
to try to find like a place where we can all just have conversations and
greater understanding of things. Anyway, I want to close with a topic that
is dear to my heart, not in a positive way. But you know,
when I was dating, I learned later in therapy that I have what's
known as an anxious ambivalent attachment style. Not anymore. I've healed partly through
my close attachment to my children and the fact that I was able to pick
a partner now who has a secure attachment style. But what an anxious ambivalent
attachment style is. It's somebody who is longing for love and closeness and begging
for love and closeness, but if they ever meet somebody who actually gives it
to them, they're like, Oh, he's too nice. Ooh, it's
like go away, that's too much yuck. Right, So I spent most
of my young single years dating emotionally avoidant men because they satisfied my longing.
It's like I wasn't in love with love. I was in love with longing,
and I stayed in a state of pain, hoping to quote unquote get
them to love me. And it was only years later that I realized that
there was a common denominator in all my relationships, and it was me.
I was choosing them. I was projecting my own childhood trauma on them.
But in order for me to sort of overcome this, I had to stop
and lay out a plant, like how to spot somebody who has an avoidant
attachment style. You've probably heard me tell this story before. It's very common.
The four stages of personal growth. Right, the first stage of personal
growth is you're walking down the street, you don't see a hole, you
fall in it. Okay, that would be the regular avoidant playboy that I
used to be attracted to. Don't see the hole, fall in it.
And then you next stage of personal growth, you learn a little bit about
your attachment style and your piece in it. And then you walk down the
street and you see that hole this time, and you still fall in it.
Right. I went through a bunch of men like that where I'd be
kicking myself going I saw this come in, Why did I still go out
with him? Right? And then stage three of personal growth is when you're
walking down that street, you see the whole, and now you take very
careful steps to avoid falling in the hole. That's when you say I'm not
gonna go out with you, or I'm gonna break up with you, or
I'm not going to be attracted to that person because they have all the signs,
the red flags that they might be emotionally avoidant. And then the fourth
step is you take a different street. So when I met Julio, he
was so different different. I'd never met a guy that was light and funny
and cuddly and warm I'm like, men can be cuddly and warm. I
had these stoic statues because they were always avoidant. So if you are on
stage two and you're trying to recognize the whole, let me tell you what
an avoidant partner looks like. First of all, the most common sign is
they don't open up to you. They're emotionally unavailable, and when you try
to encourage them to open up, you give them a safe space with your
discussions, you showcase your feelings to them, They change the subject, they
disappear, they get mad at you. That's definitely somebody who has an avoidant
attachment style, and they're just not comfortable even seeing your emotions. In fact,
your emotions often incite anger in them. Here's another way you can tell
somebody has an avoidant attachment style. Their past is a bit of a mystery.
They don't talk about it. They don't talk about their past relationships.
They don't talk about it. They're just very general. They'll say, yeah,
like we just have bad communication. Uh huh, well what happened,
Like how long did you go to We were together a few years? I
mean we broke up a couple times, but yeah, it just wasn't for
me, Like they just It's not like they don't tell stories about the emotional
stuff that happened, right. Avoidant people also regularly resort to sarcasm. Oh
yeah, they love that sarcasm. They turn everything into a weird joke or
laughing off and you're like, it's like a serious, bad thing that happened
to them. Why are they making such light about it. The other thing
avoidant people do is they avoid any conversation about commitment, and they're very slow
to commit, and they act like you're the needy one. Oh oh oh,
this is a big one. They call you and their past girlfriends needy.
I have to say, I have never heard my Julio refer to any
woman in his life as ever having been needy. You know what, we
all have healthy needs, healthy emotional needs, and in a good relationship,
you can showcase those safely. Right. The other thing is they hide behind
their technology, They hide behind their cell phones. You never can reach them
when you need them. That's an avoidant person. When I told Julio I
have a little anxiety around attachment. If I reach out to you, can
you get back to me right away? He said, sure? Is that
what you need great like he was cool whatever. Right. And to this
day, if he's on a really important business phone call, if I call
him, he has programmed a little auto text that says on a call,
got to call you back, and I know he will as soon as he
gets off that phone. And the last thing that avoidant people do is they
don't really make a big effort in relationships. You're doing all the work to
try to make it happen, the emotional work, the communication, the contact.
So if you're maybe on stage two, now you know to recognize it
and now it's time to call your therapist. So you have a wingman or
a wingwoman as you go to stage three, where you learn to take a
different street. I'll eventually be stage four. And that brings another wonderful Doctor
Wendy Wall show to a close. It is always my pleasure every Sunday to
be with you from seven to nine pm. You can also follow me on
my social media. The handle everywhere is at doctor Wendy Walsh. I also
have a really great Patreon group. I encourage you to join us. Wednesdays
every night at six point thirty, we have a zoom room that's so much
fun. That's Patreon dot com slash Doctor Wendy Walsh, but I'll be here
for you every week on KFI. You've been listening to The Doctor Wendy Wall
Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app kf
I Am six forty on demand