it's concerning because, again, if the bottom line is we're trying to help people understand themselves and help them function better, lead a more fulfilling life. You can't do that when you're only getting ten or 20% of the story, I'm going to reframe my question. Bill, I have a couple of questions that are related. So the first question is, when you talk about auto, heterosexuality or talk about auto going Ophelia or auto and Ophelia, help explain to people why it's not just some excessive narcissistic self-love. Explain why. It's not just that. Yeah. Because even though it is like a love of a part of yourself, whether or not I think it's fair to call it narcissistic depends on whether the way people act on it damages their ability to interact with other people and and form meaningful, healthy relationships. It's yeah. Even though the roots of self you know auto and philia love for love are are the labels for these orientations. It's I just don't think it is narcissism because I mean anecdotally I've met plenty of Agps and API's and they don't they're I wouldn't say narcissism seems to be the norm among this group. You know, like the orientation may make them put extra emotional significance in that cross gender part of themselves, but it doesn't it just doesn't strike me as like a cluster B sort of personality disorder. I think I just yeah, I guess I don't really have I don't really know a whole bunch about narcissism. I can just it it just doesn't seem like the same thing. And it's interesting because as we're talking about this here and it's somewhat tangential, but related to the topic of love, I think that with love in general, we do have to love ourselves. We've spoken in our previous podcast about relationships that one of the most important things for anybody to do when it comes to love is ensure that they're feeling happy and healthy with who they are. So I think that self-love is important in love in general. That's some healthy self-regard. Yeah. Right. Right. So at least the second part of the question, which we do know that there are numerous stories of when someone realizes and traditionally it's been the male to female, in this case auto going to file when they find out, you know what, I have this other part of myself and I need to be true to myself and part of that involves sadly leaving a current partner either because, well, oftentimes the partner can't doesn't find a compatible. They just can't go along with it. They didn't sign up for this person said, I married a man and you know, I can't. Now suddenly become a lesbian or, you know, or be partner with a woman or, you know, the person becomes so selfish and so, so absorbed in their own journey, the person being beneficial that they don't have time for the other person or family. They need to, you know, again, become more complete. So a lot of people would say either that's selfish or it's narcissistic. You're not taking into consideration your partner or your child or children. Right. So I'm going to let you elaborate or discuss what your thoughts are on that, about how to balance, you know, one's need to become complete without breaking up other systems that the person has become involved in. And this might be part of your answer, but I will say that I lecture about this all the time because I have numerous patients who went through the exact same, let's say, trajectory, but it was about, you know, being able to come to terms with being gay. And it was the same issue. Some families are able to remain intact. Some are break apart. Unfortunately, some people who are gay or bisexual would say, you know what? They find a workaround somehow or the partners will open up the relationship, allow you maintain your family, but also discover this other part of yourself. Be this other part of yourself. So I don't know if the parallels fall apart in any way, if they're perfectly compatible, but you want to. What are your thoughts on people, you know, completing themselves? Yeah. There definitely is some overlap with you mentioned between the same sex attracted people and that the is and the other guy files. There's overlap in that. A lot of these people got into relationships denying this part of themselves or hoping it would go away and you know, not having access to good information about it and and then down the line, they just built up this inattention. This unmet need gnaws at them. And they they say, you know what, I have to I have to give in somewhat to the side of myself in order to be happy and to live true to myself. And that and it's sad when that happens for the for the families, if it ever breaks up, you know, marriages and families, it's it's sad. And that's part of why I want these orientations to be understood more so that early on people people that have auto heterosexual orientations, if I'm there like first or second date with a person, I think they should let them know, hey, this is a big part of my sexuality. It is unlikely to change if it is not. If that's something that is a deal breaker for you, then we should not pursue this. I ideally would like to see a world where people understand their orientations before they make serious romantic commitments so that they're doing it in full knowledge of themselves and their motivations, and so that their partners can also meaningfully consent to putting that energy into the relationship. So, Phil, for me, it's in my nature as a therapist to want to know more about you and your experiences with this, though. Was that something that you experienced where, you know, perhaps in dating or in relationships, you had this moment of pause. That it wasn't something that for a long time I just tried to ignore it, so I didn't really put much thought into it. It was it. I have noticed, though, that it can make it so, you know, after the honeymoon phase of the relationship is like sort of over, you know, maybe like a year, a year and a half in a relationship, it can be harder to want to maintain the relationship. And I don't know, I imagine that's normal to some extent, but I figure what I experience is probably a little more resistance than than the normal person experiences where, you know, after some period of time it it's sort of the that inner animal force, that magnetism that draws people together. Like it's just not as strong in me, you know So. So did you have to go through that? Did you have to go through that a few times before you kind of had a light bulb moment of self-reflection? It's only through learning about the orientation that I had any idea of what was going on. I would not have figured this out through introspection. There's just no way. If I didn't come across these important scientific concepts, I would have continued to be lost in that respect. And do you think that's because you just didn't have that point of reference? I just there's just no way I could have predicted that. The reason, you know, I haven't like, had say, like, you know, some people have relationships that are like five, ten, 15 years or whatever. I haven't had any of that long yet. And, you know, learning about the scientific theory makes sense of why that is the case for me. But I would yeah, I wouldn't have figured it out just on my own. I don't even think if I went to a therapist, you know, we would have, like, made up some false narrative because the therapist wouldn't have known about autogynephelia. Mm hmm. And, yeah, I it it definitely has an impact on my courtship life, so to speak. Yeah. So now that you have a better understanding of it, is that a positive impact? It's I mean, it would be way easier to be conventionally heterosexual. I have just given my physique and such. I'm not really naturally well-suited for being autogynephilic, but it's yeah, it makes it can make things more complicated, but it I've also still been able to, you know, date people and have meaningful romantic relationships. And so it's not like my romantic life is ruined or anything by that by having the orientation. It's just like I have to adapt to it. And it's being a sexual minority comes with its own complications with like it shrinks your dating pool. But there really hasn't been too much of an issue so far. And actually, that's interesting because that brings up another one of your and one of the many terms of the book. I want to make sure I get it right. ambiheterosexuality. Okay. All right. Which is what you're describing, which would allow somebody to be auto heterosexual while also maintaining potentially, you know, a relationship with someone else that you want to describe the ambiheterosexuality. Yeah, I use that term ambiheterosexual. This the ambi- just means both allo and auto. It means you're attracted both to the other sex and to being the other sex in sort of somewhat similar proportions, you know, such that it makes sense to use that term. And when you're in that sort of like I have it to that degree where the two different the allo and the auto sides, there's this what each side wants is different. And so there's a tension between the two and it's like, how do you make it work such that both sides are satisfied adequately and it's this sort of pendulum, it goes back and forth and it's really hard to know what to do and it's hard to feel like there's a clear answer to because, you know, if I was just like 100% autogynephilic the decision to like transition would be a no brainer in the sense of, oh, there's like 0% of my sexuality that cares about anything else, you know, therefore, it's a no brainer to transition. But when you have both the allo and auto attractions to similar degrees, there's this tension between them that it leads to a lot of complication. And there's not really a clear way of satisfying both sides at the same time, because a lot of the things they want are contradictory. Mm hmm. And what are some of the things? Well, like, for instance, you know, my regular heterosexuality, I'd want to be with, you know what, like a conventionally feminine woman. But the autoheterosexuality, it increases the attractiveness of women that are masculine in physique or in their personality traits. And so it it makes masculine women more attractive. And so basically, yeah, there's this. The two different sides want different things. And like that example of like what type of partner you'd be into is just one example, you know, in terms of like the methods of like sexual intercourse or whatever. It makes sense that if by one side would want to say do like penetrative penis in vagina sex, whereas like the other side would want to be penetrated, you know, So it's it's the two different sides they want to play like both roles at the same. Like you kind of want both things at the same time and it's not really possible. And so it's it's really hard to figure out. Do you think that would be dependent on the partner that you're paired up with at the time? Like, would would a certain type of partner highlight one of those sides more than the another? Yeah, I mean, it would depend on the partner I would say for for someone that who's it's good that we brought up the subject because I think the ratio of strength between the allo and the auto sides are it's, I think it's a very big determinant of the ultimate trajectory a person takes as to whether or not over the long term they would transition and if so, to what degree. And so yeah, it's yeah, it's, it's just such a big determinant as if you're mostly just care about you know being a woman then you know, you'll pick sexual partners that fit that. And I have found personally that it's possible to find people that that sort of suit both sides to some extent. And so that as a composite sort of form of attraction, it's very attractive and it works, you know, like a woman that's like a little has a little bit of masculinity, you know, for instance, you know, that's like, you know, somewhat bisexual. Um, yeah, there's compatibility with that sort of person. Mm hmm. And that's why I brought in earlier a few, let's say, intersecting, overlapping, you know, coincidental, maybe issues, because they do overlap. They do intersect in many ways that we're not fully aware of. And if I can just bring one example and you kind of alluded to it. You say this in your book as well. You talk about how, you know, for someone who's either who's autoheterosexual they are going to be more attracted to a partner of the of a sex that makes them feel more in line with who they want to be. So if you're a biological male, you're also going to feel like you want a woman who's more masculine because that makes you feel more or feel or look, you know, more feminine in comparison to that. Right. And some people will take offense to that saying, well, why are you using the term masculine and feminine? But this is the language convention we're talking. Dominant or masculine looking, feminine, submissive, whatever, softer, however you want to frame it, if it's being discussed with no judgment. We're just talking about people's preferences. We're talking about what turns them on, what is compatible with their needs, and so on. There's no there's no hatred involved. There's no bias, there's no sexism. It's just describing people's interests and attraction and so on. So I think it's really important for people to recognize that these are not neat, tidy little packets. There's a whole bunch. There's a lot of mess going on. They do intersect in certain ways and we don't fully understand it. And what I was going to say was and I know Blanchard Bailey talk about this a lot and maybe you can talk about it felt this idea that again, traditionally when they talked about the auto kind of file versus the homosexual transsexual, the biggest station was who are they sexually attracted to? And then so a lot of people who deny being auto kind of look say, wait, wait, but I'm also attracted to women. So sorry to men. I am attracted to men. So I am either bisexual or I am what you call a homosexual transsexual. I'm not autogynephilic because I like women. And what people have stated, including Lawrence, Dr. Lawrence as well, is the fact that is it really like elicit a biological innate attraction to the same sex or is it more a role? Is it more the narrative? Is it that the greatest, let's say, obvious representation of my being a female, at least sexually speaking or talking sexually speaking, would be to be penetrated by a man metaphorically, visually speaking, if physically speaking, that's the greatest representation. So does that mean that there are sexually attracted to men or is it to the idea that having a man with me penetrating me validates my role, my need to be seen as a to feel as a woman? Thoughts on that? Right. I do think that yeah, what you're describing here, the meta-attraction it is I think it is, it makes it so it can be sometimes hard to be tell what ideology someone is just based on their partner preferences where there are some that some transsexuals that you'd categorize as homosexual just based on their partner preferences. But homosexuality is a byproduct of meta-attraction rather than conventional homosexuality. And so it can be hard to tell which of the two groups a transsexual falls into sometimes. And and so I think this ultimately leads to us underestimating the true prevalence of the autosexual contingent of the trans people, because some of the homosexual group is actually not the homosexual type, so to speak. And and yeah, as you said, that it's with meta-attraction, it seems to be more about the attraction of particular type of embodiment and how that partner makes you feel rather than the conventional direct attraction to their physical features that we think of with conventional sexual orientation and as I say, someone who is strongly auto heterosexual to the degree that they barely have any conventional allo sexual attraction from the inside, they wouldn't have anything to compare it to. They would just they would just be going with what their strongest attraction is, and that would be to having this sort of same sex interactions, but with an across gender sex role. And so this can lead to some sort of this is some of the issue that some transsexuals have of the typology. Is that it it doesn't it doesn't cleanly like separate between the two groups all the time based on that sorting with the homosexual, not homosexual sorting and yeah and they don't like how the meta attraction thing can feel. almost can almost emotionally feel as if it's like not genuine attraction. So it's being devalued in some way right. And again, this is why I kind of like this idea and I know some of the people, like I said earlier, are not going to appreciate hearing this because I don't fit into any mold. I fit into what is reality, what is going to be what is going to help the most number of people or the greatest number of people? What is going to be, you know, showing compassion to all sides of the issue. And so they may not like to hear this, but as I said several times now and by the way, I feel every every episode, there's always a drinking game in play that I repeat the same term over and over. So here we go. Paradigm shift. Okay, I really like this idea. Maybe Phil’s going to join in, right? Paradigm shift. So hey, I really like-- Thanks Malini. I really like this idea of trying to again, destigmatize people's experiences, assuming that they're not harming somebody, assuming that they're not doing something that we would all universally agree is reprehensible, assuming that they are trying to just try to live a quote unquote, normal life, to have the same rights afforded to them, the same well-being, etc.. Right. If we shift it to, again, as a sexuality so, for example, when people go online and when they're doing the like Hinge or Tinder, anything like that, they have all these designation, then they can say, for example, I'm pansexual, demisexual, asexual, and there's like it's ever growing. If autoheterosexual were one of the categories, it would be easier to say up front to find people who say, Yeah, either like minded people or someone who's more sympathetic to it, or it's just compatible with what they're looking for. They might actually be, you know, pansexual and saying, I really don't care about the physical side of you too. You are and so on. It would just make it easier, I believe, to help people who are auto heterosexual find love in a way that works for all parties involved. So that's why it's not a question. It's just putting out there. I'm hoping again that this paradigm shift or helps lead to, you know, again, less stigma and more ability to, you know, to live free and independent and have fulfillment. Yeah, And I, I hope I really hope it it helps, too, because my goal is like a long term goal is to get this taught in sex ed, you know, at and at the same age that kids learn about homosexuality or bisexuality. I, I think you could also teach them about auto heterosexuality, you know at an age appropriate level, whatever that is, for their age. And I think this would go a long way towards helping kids that experience gender dysphoria, understand their situation and start contemplating, what is the best way of dealing with this? Because right now they're just being they get taught this sort of gender religion in school that doesn't really make any sense. And so the information they're being taught right now is not helping them actually prepare for the transition decision about whether to do it or not to do it. You know, and I'm hoping that if this is incorporated in early education and sex education, that, you know, when when kids hit puberty and then they start wondering, like, why am I having these feelings, they won't be privately confused and feeling ashamed. That just be like, oh, I'm this thing that they taught about in school and it's a fine thing to be, You know, I think it would really streamline that decision making process because, yeah, I know I do have some worries about the child youth gender transition happening now, and part of it is just with the information that kids get. It's not very good saying what the clinicians do. Well, yeah, and Malini and I were talking about this before before we came on about, you know, as clinicians only think, oh, I don't put words in mouth, I'll let you talk about that. But afterwards, I do want to bring up something that Phil does mention in the book that I think is so important for people to understand, you know, let's say, how to help people with these feelings. So before I say I can, I don't put words in my mouth. Do you want to talk like. Sure, Yeah. All right. Yeah. So earlier today Oren and I were just chatting about how in reading your book, it really opened my eyes to a statement that you made and it really resonated with me that the clinicians who are charged with the task of helping such individuals have such little information and such poor information about how to handle these situations properly. And I and of course, Oren, I think, have a more robust understanding of the topic than the average clinician. And I'm still readily admitting that. I don't think I know enough. When I was looking into the the sort of the medical clinical situation, I kind of got more and more appalled at how people the only the gender affirming model is allowed in a lot of places and the clinicians don't even know that they're supposedly treating that They're treating two fundamentally different conditions. I feel like. That seems like absolutely basic, like even like pre 101 level knowledge and it. Is. And the clinicians that they don't know and they're also the ones that do know are are likely in a spot where they can't even necessarily tell the patient hey you're autogynephilic without risking their licensing or getting a complaint, things like that. Yeah, and 100%. And you know, it's a little bit different here than in the U.S., but generally speaking, we feel quite a bit like our hands are tied. Right. We're we're damned if we do, damned if we don't, because there's there's such a threat against our licensing if we say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. Right. Right. And like how I feel like that's just going to incentivize clinicians to stay out of trying to help back that subset of patients. If they're more trouble than it's worth, you know? Well, that's how sad. Yeah. Yeah, right. Again, we commit ourselves to a profession where we're trying to help and so many people now, especially in Canada, Bill C-4, where it criminalizes criminalizes conversion therapy, a loosely defined term. So if someone does try to explore and the bill supposedly takes that into account, I said this in a previous episode, even though the language is such that if you're just exploring without any bias, it shouldn't count as conversion therapy. But imagine a you know, a patient comes to, you know, to the court, makes a complaint to the college saying, I came in for my gender issues and my clinician was saying, I have a kink, I'm just some pervert or something that they can just twist it around and, you know, and that would show bias supportively and that they would distorted so much that instead of saying, okay, you may have a paraphilia or a autoheterosexuality, if we use the paradigm shifted language. Right. You know, instead of saying that, let's explore it. It will be turned around against the clinician and it doesn't serve anybody. Right. So this leads to my next point. I was going to say and Phil, you talk about in the book, I think it's really important and it kind of it it's now where I'm converging. A few points had mentioned earlier, which is I've said this in a previous podcast and it's only anecdotal. And again, Phil, you talk about in the book where I say that the autogynephiles that I know who accept that they have autogynephilia, they seem to be doing so much better. Yes, they have gender dysphoria. Yes, they know they're on a trajectory or a path trying to become something that they either we hope they can become or will not be able to fully. But the fact is they seem to have so much general mental health or so much better general mental health outside of the dysphoria than those who presumably deny it. Okay. And then you talk about a why this is about the objects. We talked earlier about objects of sexual attraction and B, why for women or for, you know, for younger girls, why this will be more difficult because of, you know, females in paraphilias or this type of erotic target location error or erotic target inversion. Can you talk about that? You know, again, this idea of how to help cope with auto heterosexuality and the difference between males and females. Yeah I, I think with regards to why I think it is that AGPs that accept it seemed to do better is the alternative narrative they have is that you are trans and the only way you can be happy is if you transition and so what that does is it creates an unrealistic expectation of what their appearance will look like. You know, like if an AGP male gets told that, hey, you're just you're just actually a woman, you know, And then if they take that to heart and then they'll start comparing their appearance to their idea of what a woman should look like. And then the disparity there brings suffering because they you know, they don't have the looks they wish they had. Whereas if they think of it as I have, I'm a sexual minority that as attracted to being a woman, it doesn't imply any level of embodiment. Like you can't fail at having a sexual orientation, you just have it. And so whereas like with gender transition that, you know, there's like accomplishments and failures, so to speak. But if you just think of it in terms of an orientation, I think it hurts less to just face reality head on. You get over the initial like the icky feelings at first when you're like, Oh, I have a weird type of sexuality. And then I think once people accept it, it's a lot easier. I think that statement requires repetition. You can't fail at having a sexual orientation. I love that. Right? Like, whereas transition, you can fail at it. Like in terms of at least if your goal is passing, it's, you know, that's not always possible. and when you try to pass, you always have to be monitoring yourself. AM my behaving the right way? Am I like every there's just such intense self-scrutiny to to adhere to the cross-gender persona, whereas if you're just recognized that you have this orientation and it makes you like doing this cross-gender stuff, and if you sort of like try not to get too attached to the outcome of whether you succeed at it, I think it's a lot easier to weather the dissatisfaction so that can come along with it. Okay. And to that point then, because again, this is the distinction between males and females and how biological females, how they can sort of cope with, you know, let's say not a full transition, but the auto heterosexuality and why women may have a harder time dealing with that. You want to elaborate right? Yeah. Like and since so male sexual orientation seems much more visual. Right And so there I think as far as I can tell autogynephiles compared to autoandrophiles. The other kind of files seem to care more about the anatomy and, and the clothing they care more about just looking the part. You know, there's quite a few of them that transition just medically and not socially at all. Just because they care that little about the social aspect. Whereas it seems that females care care much more about the social aspect and about that their orientations are, there's a much stronger relational component to it of, you know, when they're thinking of dating a guy, it's not as simple as like, wow, he's hot. It's more like, you know, what kind of guy is he? Is he funny? Does he, like, maintain good relationships with his family? You know, is he reliable? There's like, this whole for evolutionary reasons. Is this whole extra lot more mental calculations that are going on and sort of like greater depth of decision making. And so as far as I could tell, autoandrophiles seem to care more about the interpersonal aspect of cross-gender embodiment about others, seeing them as a man and or at least not being seen as a woman. You know, just they care more about how they're seen by others. And this is that's something that it's hard to realistically it's hard to embody that, you know, if you don't do the medical stuff to get the deep voice in everything, most other files aren't going to be able to suitably embody it such that other people treat them differently. And so, yeah, it seems like the aspect of the orientation that they put more emphasis in the interpersonal aspect, it's it's harder to achieve and it takes more serious investment in terms of medicalization. And I think this greater interpersonal aspect also makes sense of the fact that, you know, most people that identify as non-binary are female, you know, like roughly four out of five when kids are trans. I've just seen a lot of anecdotal stuff that when kids are transitioning in schools, it seems to be overwhelmingly female, dominant. But, you know, they they do it. It's not you know, it spreads socially, but also it assumes that the females care more about the pronouns, greater stock. And whereas the males care more about how do I look? Mm hmm. All right. Well, there's certainly enough there. And, you know, some you know, we're we're talking in general. I want to be clear, you know, right. For your podcast, anytime we say any statement, someone says, well, that's not me or, you know, Yes, we're talking in general. And as I was saying earlier about like with paraphilias or whatever we want to call it, you know, as you're saying, when it comes to that, the male cares more about how you know, how they look when they when when when they're trying to explore or enjoy their sexuality. Right. You say in the book, well, that so a male can just do some cross-dressing, right. Even if it's private or even if it's the thing under the clothes, they can act on that aspect of it and get some satisfaction that a female wouldn't because that's not what it's about. As you say, for a female, she wants to be accepted socially, interpersonally, as this male, and without transition, without medical or hormonal, hormonal, surgical, it's harder to accomplish. Right. So, as you say, like they find different ways to sort of try to accomplish that, like being gender queer, being non-binary and so on. It's kind of, you know, again, it's it's a social part and it's a it's a compromise, but it doesn't necessarily seem, I think, for some people as satisfying as the actual, again, as doing more along the sexual side. Right. I'm just trying to say once again that there's it's not just one thing or the other. There is the there's the sex part, the sexuality part, the entire personal part, the gender part, the social part. There's so many different factors and different people. For different people, certain elements are going to be more prominent, certain elements are going to be more triggering, certain elements are going to be something that they're trying to achieve more than others. And once again, getting back to something I said or we said earlier, which is if we don't take into account that any person coming into a clinic, any person coming to a doctor trying to get help could be dealing with, you know, A, B and C or D, E, F or A, an F or whatever. If we don't take all of that into account, we are going to be misleading many people. We're not going to be treating the underlying, you know, issues and needs and we're going to cause more harm than good. But once again, the fact is we're not allowed to discuss all of this. We're supposed to just go with the narrative, gender affirming, whatever they say, don't ask questions, you know, just affirm them. And we may once again be leading people down the wrong path, whether they are just gender nonconforming that simple, or they have auto heterosexuality. But it's not being dealt with in the way that works best for them. And again, you're all talk about it. And of course, the critics of us will say, oh, no, no, no, WPATH states clearly collaboration. You know, it's a lots of of of assessment, lots of ongoing evaluation, lots of therapy, etc., etc.. Well, that would be great if that were the case, which oftentimes is not. And B, if the people doing all of that, again, understand these things, if you're doing all this evaluation and therapy and so on, but they're not recognizing that there are a whole host of factors going on here. It's not just simply simple “male born in a female body” or something like that. There's much more to it. And part of it is the sexual orientation and sexual attraction sexuality part. And we can't deny that that is a part, it's part of who we are. So again, if we take this very neutral approach, as you say, you can't do sexual orientation wrong or you can't get it wrong. Right. If if you take that non-judgmental, open stance, I think we have a much greater chance of helping people progress through what they're through, whatever they're going through. but that's just my so now. I've made maybe the analogy before with this as far as ADHD, right? You can go to a general practitioner, they go through the checklist and here's your ADHD diagnosis. But we know through our work that there's so much more complexity to it and so many more layers to it. And, you know, to treat any gender issue different and the way we're supposed to treat anything in our profession is just ludicrous. Right? Yeah, It's it's got to be very annoying as a clinician to be told that like, hey, your role has traditionally been gatekeeping and using your clinician, your clinical judgment, but actually you can't do that. All you can do is affirm. And then I can imagine it might be the feeling of like, what? What? Why am I what is my purpose here? How am I even providing a benefit if I if my hands are tied. You know, my hands are not tight, they're free to rubber stamp. Okay. That's that's what I get to do. Rubber stamp, even if I know it's not in the best interest. So. Yes, exactly. And it's concerning because, again, if the bottom line is we're trying to help people understand themselves and help them function better, lead a more fulfilling life. You can't do that when you're only getting ten or 20% of the story, or you can only discuss that amount. So once again, I hate to keep saying it over and over. And by the way, there's a reason for that. You are the very first guest, Malini and I have always just had, you know, the two of us talking. But when this book came out, we both agreed, especially with the timing, with our own series on these issues, that we thought it was just such a helpful resource it just again, it's written in such a plain common, simple language with such complex issues, and it's also well researched. I can't see how somebody would not want to read it, you know, just learn more about these things, especially if they've already engaged in the gender wars. Why not add this to your, you know, to your knowledge Right. And thank you for saying all the nice things about the book. Both of you. Of course. So, Phil, I've a question for you. So is there any advice or recommendation or resource or something that you wish you had as you went through your journey of exploration of yourself and your sexuality that you could maybe impart on to listeners who are wondering about themselves or what are your thoughts on that? I just wish I understood the psychology earlier instead of trying to just introspect or use trial and error or just realistically, just try to avoid thinking about it because it conflicted with my male ego, I just I just wish I had that it had been explained to me accurately, and coherently, and like very clearly. Basically, I wish that I had access to the book that I wrote to say, like, that's why I wrote it. So that people that were in my circumstance would be able to just get told straight up, Here's what you are, here's how it works. There's no one right way of dealing with it. But if you understand the orientation and your self, you're going to be more likely to make the decisions that are right for you. I think that statement can be made about sexuality and identity in general, right? The more we know about ourselves and understand ourselves, the better off we're going to be. Yeah. Yeah. Sexual research, very important, right? And and and that's the problem that it's so personal, it's so taboo even today of all the words you can use. I mean, I've been teaching human sexuality, you know, 20 over 20 years. I say to students over those 20 years still today, I can talk about all these different subjects. But one word that still makes people a bit shaky masturbation, for example, even something as natural, as ubiquitous as masturbation still makes people feel icky rights, that word. So when we're talking about these complex issues, all right like people, they they naturally, you know, they kind of back away and we we're talking about young children and sexuality even that. And we're not talking about inappropriate sexuality. We're talking we know children, teens, preteens. That's part of the development. That's how we grow up. You know, we we start to have sexual feelings, whether it's romantic, whether it's physiological, whether it's emotional, interpersonal, whatever it is. And as you say there are many sexual minorities. If we add up all the different types of sexual minorities, it's more than a handful. There's there are quite a few. And so we do need the research, again, unbiased, as objective as possible, not discriminatory, just trying to find, you know, information to to help explain, to help validate. And just a little side note here, it was a couple of years ago, I think it was last year or two years ago that Bailey and I once say Hsu H-S-U is his former student. They did the meta analysis on the existing research on bisexuality, the physiological research using the, you know, strain gauges and the plethysmographs plus up assessment graphs. And I don't know if either of you know, you know, how many studies were involved in their meta analysis on all existing literature on the subject. We're talking about physiological arousal, bisexuals. Oh, was it four? Just guessing. I’m going to say two. You guys killed it. It's funny. Take the two, multiply eight undergrads now it makes this to be eight is a pathetically low number to do that. My guess came from the fact that I assumed it was pathetically low. Okay. So. Right. So my secret is 3 to 4. It's eight. It's eight. Right. And the reason I'm bringing this up is a there's a dearth of of information in that regard. And that's just one other area. It's the sexuality and other sexual orientation. And B, so many people instead of saying, well, thank you, thank you for showing that we're not just fantasizing, we're not just afraid to come up fully out of the closet. We're not just trying to double our chances of getting laid on a weekend. Right. Thank you for saying this is a real construct. It's a real experience. It's real sexuality. Some people say that, but many others said, how dare you even think about studying us? Because there is a history of the eggheads of the people in the white coats studying sexual minorities or racial minorities or any other type of minority in a very insulting non human type of way. You are a subject, right, as opposed to a human being. So I get it. I understand that there you know, there is a sad history, an ugly history of how psychologists, psychiatrists, academics, researchers have dealt with these issues. But the fact is, the more good research, comprehensive research we have, the better understanding we have of it. And most important, as you were saying, Phil, that for younger people, when you know if they have more resources where they can say, oh, this helps explain what I am going through, and and I agree with you, I hope that we can introduce this into at an age appropriate level, into the right streams so that people can learn more about it once again on earlier age appropriate. Right. It doesn't have three graphic. It can be very simple. Exactly. Exactly. So the more that we can talk about it, you know, the more that we can, I think, help a large number of people. And and there's a lot of collateral damage in these gender wars. So many people are being harmed, not just people, you know, who may be transgender, but very many other people in many different ways are being harmed. And, you know, that's what Malini and I trying to do on our podcast is say, how do we address these complex, controversial and equivocal issues in a fair, balanced and comprehensive manner that takes into account all people's needs or as many people's needs as possible. Said, and to your point, yeah, like the divisiveness comes from, I think a lack of willingness to accept the complexity of these topics. Right. The complexity. And when those complexities involve things that people again don't like to hear, oh yeah, sexuality or, you know, it's just again, I think when we have credible people with science behind them, not just anecdotes and so on, I do think that it does help in the end. So again, that's evidence. The last positive thing I'll say about the book. Phil Okay, just want to keep milking it. But I again, I just I was so impressed when I read it and I really thought, this is the book. Ten years ago I wouldn't have said this is the book society needs it. Maybe 15 years ago, I wouldn't have said that book the last ten years or so. I would say it's the book that we need because so many people are chiming in and so many people don't have the, you know, the requisite knowledge to be able to chime in yet. That doesn't stop them. tell you that there's two different types of trans. Like absolutely basic stuff. Exactly. That said, Phil, So let's say ten years from now, look into your crystal ball. What do you hope you will have accomplished with this book? as put it, if the gender wars could simmer down a little bit because the, you know, the Terfs or Rad Fems or whatever you want to call And the the AGPs that I think that conflict will will endure but I hope that it it gets to be less intense than it has been. Yeah and and I hope that what I want is just that when you have some pubescent kid that's experiencing these feelings about being attracted or aroused by being the other sex that they could know very quickly, Oh, this is what's happening. And spare themself years of needless introspection about like, am I trans or not? And instead realize, hey, I have this orientation. What do I want to do about it? I think that'll speed up the decision making process. And, you know, the trans activists talk all the time about how they would have been happier if they could transition earlier. And I think a very practical way of doing that, that would also hopefully reduce harm is just having the kids understand as early as possible what their actual situation is so that, you know, to the extent that they can make decisions that they're making better ones and. I got to say, Phil, one of my favorite things to do, and I know Oren knows this about me is talk about things that I don't know a whole lot about. So I am really, really enjoying this conversation, this discussion you've given me tons to think about and different ways to look at it. So I really, really appreciate this conversation. behind potential paradigm shift one second last time and and again, just trying. It's the same thing, Malini I said every single episode trying to help people get along better. The way you get along better is to understand each other better. And I think this really goes a long way to helping understand others. You know, it's not an insignificant number of people. It may, you know, whatever the number is, it's maybe an underestimate as or discovering. And also, again, many people we've talked for who think they might have one issue or condition or experience or identity, whatever, maybe they have something else, maybe they look similar or to understand differently will have a huge impact on their sense of self, their wellbeing and whatever path they take forward to. Again, try to lead a satisfying enriched, fulfilling life. So I think you've really contributed to that bill. And with that, I'm just going to wrap this up and say, until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel. As much as we love listening to ourselves speak, especially me, we would love to hear from you as well. So our emails are in the description below. If you would, please write to us with your questions, feedback, comments, topics that you'd like us to cover. We can do this together. The two of us, but it's much better if we do it together. So we look forward to hearing from you. And we are going to have a segment called Roundtable where we're going to discuss the the feedback and the questions and so on from our audience. And we will we will take it to the next level. We're going to help you be able to deal with some of these issues that you might be bringing us or it's going to be a topic for us to explore together. And we really look forward to building a community, a community of like minded people who want to do right by others, not just for themselves.