I Almost Transitioned – Here’s Why I Didn’t – Sascha Bailey (#26)

I Almost Transitioned – Here’s Why I Didn’t – Sascha Bailey (#26)

you get a lot of press for transitioning by default right now. So, a lot of people are being pulled towards that. Whether that will still be true in 2 years, 3 years, I don’t know. But I do think that it’s a benefit in that it makes you different and interesting and some people in tech want to be different and interesting. I I do think it’s more likely that there’s a lot of external pressures going on and men who don’t quite fit the standard of whatever it means to be like a traditional man, I don’t even know what that means, but would gravitate towards this change in identity. You combine that with like autism rates. You combine that with a lot of different things and I think you get a clear picture that quite obviously there is there is something going on that’s pushing people to make a very quick decision. And I think that the reason that we see less male dransitioners is is men do tend to make more final decisions. There’s a lot of shame in going back on your decision. I suppose I’m dying to hear the questions Brett has, but for me I met you before and it felt like and I would like you to tell our listeners and our viewers your whole story, but for me it felt like we met you myself and Sasha I had met you when you were just coming out and now I see it online. I’m like go Sasha. I was quite I didn’t a lot of the interviews when I was blonde I to be completely honest I still wasn’t really sure who I was. Um not that I was still thinking about being trans that had gone away a long time ago but I was still in quite a semi this isn’t a correct word but a semiociated state if it’s the opposite of this. So I was kind of in and out. A lot of the interviews I did like now I’m very present then I don’t actually remember doing them. They kind of just flowed. And I was lucky that in that state I was some I was quite coherent. But I um I’ve had a lot of time since then to think about the things I’ve said and think about the way I framed it and also to think about like the reality of it all. And I think I’ve come to a lot of very different conclusions which are in the same line. Like everything I saying was true and it’s still but it’s a different I guess a different way of framing a lot of the things that I was saying. What what was it um Stella that that was so strange for you about that first time you interviewed Sasha? Interesting. So um when when we first met Sasha, first of all, I suppose it did feel you were I get what you’re saying. I it did feel that you were just kind of still in the middle of processing. That’s what it felt like. You know what I mean? This wasn’t somebody who was saying, “I figured all this out and I know what happened.” It was like, “You’re literally coming out of a car crash. What just happened there?” It was was the vibe, if you follow me. It was it was quite for me it was quite tangible and I thought you had some really interesting stuff to say around the transmaxing and stuff and I thought I’d love to hear more about that. But then your own story was so interesting. It was just there was so much. Could you tell everybody just to start off just tell everybody where you come from, what happened if you follow me. so that people can catch up. Yeah. So, without going all the way back, the main the main point of my story is I was living in Japan. Um, I was in a 10-year relationship, which was uh a living hell. And I always try and be quite delicate about it, but I’m a bit more comfortable talking about it now, but it was it was something that really no human should have to go through uh looking back on it. And I think that during the time I was there, I I had almost decided to uh take the suicide to YouTube friendly terms. Um but prior to any thought of really transitioning and the well not in the context this is it’s hard to talk about in individual context cuz not in the context of my entire life but in the context of then and then after that the feeling that I had had and I’d had a few times at key moments throughout my life came back and it was essentiated by a bunch of circumstances which I think are to do with a lack of control. Um and then in that moment I decided I was going to transition. Uh I got um diagnosed with gendered dysphoria, whatever that means, within 10 minutes in a uh Tokyo clinic and I was prescribed HRT. Um and then I was going to transition. I ended up due to the other circumstances going on in my life, I ended up leaving Japan overnight and getting a plane back at like the next day, which all all part of another story, but I actually had to wait 12 hours in the airport because you don’t just go to an airport and buy a ticket these days. That’s not how it works. Um that’s something that’s reserved for movies. But um so I I um I came back to the UK and slowly in the UK due to the fact partially due the fact that I went to the NHS and it took a very long time to get back on like the list. I had the HRT patches but I wasn’t willing to take them um because at least there was some sensibility in my mind I guess that was like if you don’t you know you need a recurring prescription before you start taking something whatever you’re going to do for whatever reason. Um, so I stayed away from that until I was going to get it. During the time I was waiting, I ended up meeting people and thinking about my decision and it slowly unraveled and the further away I got from that situation, the more it unraveled and I was still going through a there was a lot of things after that that happened with kind of coming to terms with the fact that a lot of what I’ve experienced is um PTSD episodes. A lot of what I had experienced during that time was probably, and I don’t want to say this to exact, but I do think it was some sort of fight or flight, a fight orflight response that ended in a dissociative episode, which for whatever reason due to personal history um that I have that we’ll get into manifested as wanting to be trans. And it kind of the the psychological response to extreme stress seemed to be to gravitate towards being a totally new person and that totally new person through my predisposition through my life experience was someone who wanted to be a woman. What I really appreciate about the way you’re framing it is it allows a way of thinking about a lot of different varieties of people and all of the different reasons that a person could kind of glum on to this idea of being trans because it’s at least not being me. It’s like being something else. when I’ve seen you speak in other, you know, podcasts, one of the things that I that really struck me is like for a lot of people, there’s this sort of functional logic, sort of a game theory approach that just says, well, you know, um like for some people might think I’m not going to get hired if I’m a man, so I’ll become a woman. or you know this is happening to me because I’m a certain gender so I’ll just change it which is is sort of a type of logic that seems so simple and without feeling that’s or soul that’s how I frame it that it’s it it’s kind of hard for me personally to know how to deal with it because it’s like it kind of makes sense in a certain way and at the same time it’s like horrifying the way it makes sense. I don’t know. I mean, a lot of that was me, too, cuz when you’re doing it and you’re making this decision, you then start thinking about, well, like you said, like the game theory aspect. So, it’s I I a lot of this is chicken and egg. So, a lot of people would be like, oh, the only reason someone’s transitioning is because of benefit. But maybe the reason that they transitioned originally or were thinking about it or predisposed to it is something else. And then on top of that they then start justifying it by by you know for me it would be like okay I was working in tech transitioning objectively would have been good for my career in tech. There is no there is no other way of framing that is just true and you know people will say oh it’s all these challenges and whatnot but the fact is that if you transition you’re one of the first trans people you are guaranteed extra press. So it is good for your company in in that sense. But whether that’s like the primary reason or whether that’s a justification we come up with afterwards to justify along not only with are we doing this crazy thing but it will also be good for me. And then you the lies you tell yourself and and you know they may be true in society which I think is a huge part of the problem. It some of these things are true in society but I think a lot of it is the lies you tell yourself after the fact. In you saying that is where I see a real evolution because I’ve watched a couple other discussions where you’re talking and it seemed to me like you kind of believed the conscious rationale of some people like whereas now I’m hearing that yeah sometimes that conscious rationale is after the fact or not the real rationale. It’s like there’s so much else going on. No, exactly. And I think it’s it’s even thinking about myself like the other interviews I gave where I said I had experienced gender dysphoria. I don’t know what that means anymore. Um and I I looking back on it like I there are some times in my life there are three times I can point to where it was more gender based. But all the other times I look back on it and I re and I think I reframed it was I think they were just episodes of not wanting to be me. And in the moment it wasn’t I wanted to be someone else. I just didn’t want to be myself. So look when you and and probably still when I gave the first interview on this was I was still framing those kind of mini things in between as if it was that when really I was probably suffering from PTSD from what I went through as a child or well not again it’s more complicated and um to get to get into what um happened to me as a child. sexually abused. Um, just so people understand the basis of what I’m saying. Um, but the the real problem and the real reason it kept coming up is because the person I was around 24/7 like to use that as a weapon in minor arguments. So, I was being forced to relive this thing all the time. And I don’t think that it was actually gender based. I think it would became gender based on on hindsight and it’s it’s it’s really hard to describe because going through all of this and looking into all of the theories and everything that I’ve done for the last year is that I the one conclusion I come back to is that I’m pretty sure everyone is just an individual and to try and categorize you know you can do it broadly speaking but it’s it’s difficult to do in a in a meaningful sense for every individual. So of course because that thing was brought up and that thing is inherently gender based every argument that that was brought up with and every time it resulted in me having a kind of episode of course I was going to then relate it back to those elements because that is why why it was brought up. So, I think for someone for more broadly speaking, I think if people are always having these traumatic kind of or people are having these traumatic uh moments and then they’re seeing someone or they’re talking to someone who’s instantly framing it through gender, it’s like um I don’t know if the technical term is like response priming, but it’s like it’s yeah, it’s it’s it’s like you’re just being put into that idea constantly that this is what it is. This is when really it’s not. and you’re just you’re experiencing maybe a minor form of dissociation which I think is more common than we think it is um in like a very minor form and yeah and I don’t know I I I that’s how I feel like with me is what happened. It’s strange because when you hear the word dysphoria now, people always think, well, they just think gender dysphoria, but dysphoria is just kind of in its rich sense is a malaise. It’s a depression. It’s a sadness. And and now it seems like if there’s a dysphoria, we can just call it gender dysphoria. It’s like the dysphoria is primary and the gender aspect is secondary. I don’t know. That’s one way of thinking. It’s also like the easiest dysphoria to have because it’s something you can relate to it. Something exists. So you’re relating to, you know, when you have dysphoria normally, you you can’t pick to be someone else in any other sphere, but you can kind of weirdly in our culture, not that you actually can in reality, but you weirdly can pick to be the other gender. So, if you’re going to have a I don’t want to be me, then you’ll probably end up being, you know, it’s a very easy thing to it’s hard to frame properly, but it’s a very easy thing to gravitate towards towards because it’s a new identity, which means reinventing yourself, which means becoming a new person. I I think you’re you’re you’re highlighting a very important point. In a way, if it was a better phrased um diagnosis, I think a lot of people would understand what’s going on. It’s a kind of I don’t want to be me distress. I I don’t want to be me. I don’t want to be me. I want to be anything but me. And you know, let me be somebody else. And that like kind of I think encapsulates the horror of of the distress of I I just don’t want to be me. It’s it’s horrifying and it’s very sad. And if that’s I sometimes play around with the idea of it was called identity disorder or something, but then it’s falling into identity politics. But if it was some sort of kind of way of encapsulating what is going on for people, I think people would have frankly more sympathy and definitely more understanding of what is actually going down. And like you said, that’s what I really liked what you said, Sasha, that it’s it it’s the easiest way to be somebody else. Well, change your sex, change your sex markers. It that is you escape. You know what I mean? You know that E Cummings line, there’s an I I’m going to botch it, but something like there’s another universe next door. Will we go? It’s kind of like that, like let’s go. Let’s let’s be something different. And it’s very creative and it’s like, well, there’s a new path. Why don’t I follow that one? Um I I was interested though in something you said earlier, which was the tech. If you don’t mind, just to get down to the granular of this because I I think it’s really important. You said it would be easier when I was working in tech to be to transition. It was it was a well welcomed. Do you think that’s still true? And do you think um being the position you are now effectively a disaster and a well-known disaster? Is that horrifying in the same um well I definitely don’t have the same opportunities I I did. But um I I think no I think it’s true. I think it would be true in the fact that from a PR sense whether it would be true in a functional sense is a different question. like whether your day-to-day employees would be comfortable around you, whether you know that’s a very different question to but in a PR sense, could you get on the cover of some magazine for doing it? Yes, definitely. If you’re promoting a project and you’re in a short-term way, especially in America, maybe not so much in England anymore with the changes that have happened, but I do think unfortunately it is it would be a short-term benefit. And if all you’re looking for is a short-term benefit to sell your product or whatever, it it would be a way of not I’m not saying like a primary reason or a big reason, but it would be a way of doing that thing where people justify a decision to themselves afterwards. They be like, “Oh, it’s also good.” And I do think unfortunately, yeah, I I you get a lot of press for transitioning by default right now. So, a lot of people are being pulled towards that. Whether that will still be true in 2 years, 3 years, I don’t know. But I do think that it’s a benefit in that it makes you different and interesting and some people in tech want to be different and interesting. I don’t think that’s the reason why most people in tech transition cuz most people aren’t CEOs. But I do think it’s a reason why some people would like I say retroactively retroactively justify their reason to themselves using and that’s if if I’m right that’s transmaxing. Am I right? Kind of. Uh, no. People So people know what So I I don’t know. I I I think transmaxes are complicated cuz that would technically yes, fall under transmaxing, but transmaxing to me and a lot of people misunderstand it. They think that they’re talking about the personal gains, but they’re not really. When you read their manifes I’ve read too many manifestos after over the last year. Um, but when you read that manifesto, it essentially just outlines the logical reasons why you would transition. Not necessarily saying that it’s a benefit, but they’re saying like, okay, if you’re under six foot and you’re a man, you’re probably a better candidate than you’re if you’re over 6T. These are all the stats on like it’s it’s a very stat heavy manifesto. And I it’s it’s just and I don’t mean this in any sort of rude way, but it it’s like transitioning viewed through an autistic lens. That’s that’s what I would say it has because that’s it basically what it is. People really the Channel 4 documentary mixed everything up cuz they made out like, oh, they’re doing it because they gain extra things. It’s not really that. It’s just here’s the data sets and here’s why you would want to transition based on data rather than based on you feel like a woman or something like that. And a lot of the the other parts of the manifesto could lean towards the more weird sort of kink side. But I actually think that overshadows what it’s really saying which is very much like here’s the data on how well you passed. Here’s the data on other people who have passed. Here’s their exper like it’s someone who wants a manual. That’s yeah, a spreadsheet on why they should do it or not. That’s very much what it is. And and the reason I got interested in them as well is honestly cuz I wasn’t I I wasn’t aware of their existence until after I’d kind of decided not to do it. But I did feel like a lot of the reasons they were giving were similar reasons to the ones that I came to. I’m I’m thinking about what we were talking about earlier of this idea of just transitioning to something else because it’s not me. And I’m kind of thinking of that in relation to all of the technological developments that are happening, which means that I mean it opens up the door of transitioning into other things other than the opposite gender. Like the we’ve got crisper, we’ve got nanotechnology, we’ve got um you know genetic engineering, we’ve got a lot of different ways of changing ourselves. Now, I mean, in a hundred years, are we going to be trying to change ourselves into other species or just like what are the weird extreme body modification things that we might see in the future? I think the next thing, and this could be, you know, like 5 to 10, 20 years, um, is going to be bionic parts because we have that, you know, there’s that girl who has, uh, she was born without limbs. Like, she genuinely needs them. I I can’t remember why, but she has two bionic arms. And recently, there was a video uploaded where she was controlling her hand by Bluetooth, so from like across the room. And it only takes for this sort of thing to get better than slightly better or slightly more interesting than what you’re born with for people to be like, I want that. And then I guess the ethical thing will be and this is this is again this is probably a while off but the ethical question will be is it still self mutilation if you cut your arm off to replace it with a better arm? Like that would be the cuz right now if you cut your arm off you’re definitely going to get an inferior to a human arm. But if your arm can experience touch, it can spin 360 degrees and it can walk across the room remotely. It are you actually like are you selfharming at that point? because is it not better? And I’m not saying it is or isn’t. I’m just saying that it’s that’s going to be the ethical question on that sort of stuff. I think that’s very interesting. Rosie Kal about that at the Lisbon conference. Um, you know, she talked about soldiers who be able to see in the dark and run faster and go without sleeping. And it’s it’s like when technology exceeds human capacity like the chess chess player got beaten and stuff. I could really see the the newer generations not being horrified by that and just thinking yeah it’s logical. Why wouldn’t you let it work for you? Yeah. Well, exactly. If it has no downsides then what there’s only up like it’s that’s but then yeah that become it becomes a very different question I think because the changing gender thing is is it’s in a very different category but I do think it is yeah the ethical questions of when it becomes a benefit or or it’s meaningless again this is you know even further out when people can just switch bodies at will that will be a very different question as well like but these are all kind of very very far forward questions could I just add in I can see you’ve got something on your mind Brett and I want to hear it but I just want to add in that like I had these drans meetings you know beyond trans we we meet and we meet dransitioners and it’s facilitated group but I can’t get over the number of them who say you know it made sense to transition I you know it was it just made sense in my life I was going to be more powerful I was going to be a man I was but things were going to go easier for me very logical like you say the spreadsheet do you know what I mean and this is going back generations some of the people in our ratings are 70 80 you know 60s 50s that they’re really quite old and they would have transitioned a long time ago and by the way often were fasttracked through so it’s a that’s a bit of a surprise for me because I didn’t expect to hear that so often but anyway so there was always a lunatic fringe they say it in such a logical way that they thought yeah not nothing to do with authentic and everything to do with it makes more sense on the spreadsheet for me to be male or female or whatever And so I will be and it’s a very I would say a very autistic way of seeing things. It’s a very you know here’s the pros and cons. For want of a better word, that’s the word that I would lean into of that seems to give the understanding that somebody like me doesn’t have of what’s going on in the person’s mind because you are you are weighing it up. And but again, I do think there is there is something to be said with whether that is a conscious decision at the time you choose to transition or whether it’s a retroactive justification you give to it. That’s also I think another question because it’s a lot of people might not be thinking that when they’re thinking about transitioning, but afterwards they’ll they’ll because they need to justify their decision to other people, they’ll come up with all of these ideas and and whether one is before the other is is is another part of it as well. It reminds me of the the adage uh in psychotherapy that the issue isn’t the issue. You don’t you don’t you know immediately adopt the the rationale or the thinking process or even what the I you don’t assume that what the person is saying is the justification for being there actually is. It’s like you you hear it and you and you keep asking questions. Now I’m wondering what Stella has on her mind because she’s looking up at the heavens like it must be something. Well, what I was thinking of was I I I totally agree the issue isn’t the issue. And Sasha, you gave a good kind of quick synopsis of, you know, you were in a horror relationship. You did not want to be you. And it it was kind of almost a quick, well, I could be that. You know what I mean? And I I would imagine people listening would say that’s my loved one. They’ve just gone through a trauma and it’s a kind of a quick and then it’s like like almost a drowning man clinging to the life boy. Then that is my solution and you will not take it off my hands. What pulled you out of that very vulnerable position you were in which was this is the solution. Every route I tried to take I was blocked from. I was told that it wasn’t enough. I was told it didn’t work. And then this one thing which is being trans and again like I said I was predisposed to it but it was a decision I could make where there was no choice on the other party. So it was something it was one of the very few things that I could do or move towards that I could do and move towards no matter what. Anything else I tried and I tried a million different things um without getting too into it to try and sort it out never worked. So this became that after kind of all the traumatic stuff that that happened it it just felt logical like you said. And then coming back to England I think what changed it is genuinely I changed my situation. I changed my environment and I did meet some people who really helped me. I met my my now um love of my life who I’m having a baby with. But um congratulations. Thank you. But um but I all all of those things helps and they’re all so many different ingredients. It’s hard to say one thing. But for a lot of people, the complete breakdown of something and the change of environment doesn’t help. But for me, I guess I was lucky that it was so drastic and it was around so many different people and literally no one from my previous life. So it kind of it kind of woke me up from it. And also I didn’t have that threat anymore. I didn’t have that constant thing that was pushing me towards this crazy solution. And it’s I wish I could give a better concise answer. I really do. Um but I can’t because everyone it it was the best answer I can give is that I removed myself from the situation which left me with no options and no control and I ended up in a situation where I had control and I had options and I felt as if I had a future as myself. And that’s not a very descriptive answer, but it’s the best answer I can give. Someone mirroring me helped to wake me up from it, like repeating what I was saying back to them. Um, uh, back to me, sorry. Uh, in that I was like, you know, what will happen after you transition? Repeating that back. Being away from the constant stress helped. Um, and and this is individual to me. I don’t know if it would help someone else. I I hope it will, but I to me it was the lack of options. this was a form of control and all the periods in my life when I’ve thought about doing it. So, so the main the main flash points were just after I was um what happened to me as a kid happened and I was thinking about removing one of my body parts in a bath which I’ve spoken about before but that was uh about control that was about control of that situation. and I didn’t want to be like the person who hurt me when I was around 18 uh 17 18 and I thought about it again because I found out out about it online um the main thought was I must do this soon because I won’t have a choice in what I develop as afterwards which is again control and then when I was 28 when I was thinking about again in this in this situation that I had no control over anything I was doing it was again a form of gaining control so I I I think that’s The if I had to sum it up with the three major points where actually I can say for sure it was somewhat gender related was to do with gaining control over the situation I was in. Not necessarily um Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The whole the whole theme of control seems to be something that we’re really grappling with culturally. Uh and there’s an assumption that having control is good and there’s and I think an implicit distrust of anything out of our control. But we can see it like in the way we medicalize every sort of mood that’s disagreeable. And the idea now that that you can kind of choose which puberty you want or if you want a puberty it’s like no no there nature does its thing and you’re kind of supposed to acquies on a lot of it. No, definitely. And I think as well, but that’s like the control that society exerts over to you kind of reduces individual control. And it’s like I don’t know, these things feed into each other, but it’s almost like a rebellion against the society that’s pushing you into one box or another to take control over your own identity in that very serious way. Cuz we are out of control as a people like as a just dayto-day. We don’t have much control over our lives. But we that’s I I I think that’s where it can all be linked back to. I think it’s people trying to exert control over their lives and this is where it comes out. And obviously everyone has very different individual reasons, but I do think this is this is the root cause. I I I agree with you. I don’t think we say this enough about control and and you know the wish to transition. I think it’s uh I think life has become less and less understandable. So you don’t know how your TV works and you don’t know how your car moves and all everything has become not intuitively understandable in a way it was for every other generation until now and now you have to have a PhD in you know technology to understand how anything the radio even works and so we don’t feel like when the thing doesn’t work which is let’s say five times a day whatever the hell you’re pressing you have this utter sense of it’s called frictions but these daily frictions of I don’t it doesn’t work and I don’t know how to fix it. Now, I’m particularly talented in that area. So, I do appeal for people, but that feeling of our ability to control our our lives has been reduced significantly and now it’s it’s the man, it’s the Wi-Fi, it’s the you know, it’s the large large network that is c holding up society. And so I can see people wanting to carve out their own piece of control in their life. It just feels like a very human response to this feeling of, you know, the buses and the trains and the airplanes and the Wi-Fi and the emails that there’s this huge system and I have no idea who’s running any of it. Now I’m going to take control of my corner of the world. It’s the equivalent of, you know, living off the fat of the land and having your, you know, but it’s the it’s the technological equivalent. Well, you can’t change your environment, but you change yourself, right? So, it’s Yeah, I it makes sense to me. It makes a lot of sense that that’s why they feel like they’ve no control over anything. Well, I can I can control my body. I can I can actually create my body completely and I can also control everybody’s way of thinking about me and speaking about me. Yeah. So, I’ve got a real little corner of control mapped out here in an uncontrollable world. I’m just thinking there’s like a whole mythology of like self-creation behind a lot of this. Like I can just decide who I am and who I want to be and then kind of mold myself into a particular form. And I don’t know, it’s very Prometheian. It’s very like we’re going to steal fire from the gods and just, you know, create ourselves in in our own Well, yeah. You’re creating the world around you. And I think it’s um the the root of it is is like a lack of social roles. So, a lack of things to be if if humans don’t have enough things to inhabit or be, then they’ll come they’ll end up focusing on like an introspective thing because you can control the introspective thing. Um, to switch gears a little bit, um, I see you’ve become, I think, if I’m reading you right, quite interested in what’s happening to the to the boys, to the males. Yes, that’s what I was mentioning. Yeah, that’s I mean, obviously that’s my that’s who I am. So, that’s I like I I can’t, you know, I can’t give a full thought on why girls do it, but I can give a a better coherent thought on why men might do it. So, where are you at now? And what why are the men where what’s going on for the boys these days? I think that it’s a very different thing between younger and older. I think that younger I I I think that there is a very solid case to be made for rood boys. I I don’t So I’ve looked into all of this. I I I fundamentally disagree with the idea that every single straight man who um transitions is AGP. I I don’t I don’t understand. To me that’s to me that doesn’t make any more sense. you know, um, if you summed it up by saying in gender identity, you’re born with a mismatch between your outward facing sex and your internal gender identity. I don’t see the intrinsic difference in saying in, you know, Blanchard’s age, whatever you want to call it, um, theory, you are born with a mismatch between your outward sexual um, sexual sexual identity and your inward sexuality. It sounds to me like a reframing of the exact same thing, but with slightly different terms. Um, and I know there’s a lot of, you know, self-reporting and studies behind it, but I I don’t I don’t think it stands up to thinking about it within the modern lens. And also I I I think generally speaking the it you can just look you have to look at the way society’s evolved over the last 30 40 years since the 60s with there has been a lot of you know if you say for instance to a young boy young white boy um I hate old white men. What are you actually saying to them? You’re saying something that’s actually quite abusive because what you’re saying as a and this is something we hear all the time in society for whatever reason. This is just an example and I hate making figs racial but it’s the the example I can think of is that whenever you say that and there’s young white men in your life, you are basically telling them you’re going to grow up to be something evil. And that’s a societal pressure which is being put on that section of the society. But then it is put on men in general as well because there is a huge cohort of people who you know um constantly go on about how men grow up to be all of the worst things in society. And I do think that that’s been something that’s grown over the last 30 years. Combine that with the internet. Combine that with sensitive men who are interested in tech which is where we see a lot of transition which just so happened to be the exact same fields as which have been pushing this kind of feminine narrative. And I think, you know, for anyone with any innate feeling, it would be very suspect that all of them just end up in the same industry. Um, but they I I do think it’s more likely that there’s a lot of external pressures going on and men who don’t quite fit the standard of whatever it means to be like a traditional man. I don’t even know what that means, but would gravitate towards this change in identity. You combine that with like autism rates. You combine that with a lot of different things and I think you get a clear picture that quite obviously there is there is something going on that’s pushing people to make a very quick decision. And I think that the reason that we see less male dransitioners is is men do tend to make more final decisions. There’s a lot of shame in going back on your decision. There’s a lot more shame in our society on dransitioning than there is in transitioning. And if you’re you end up happy with your environment anyway, I don’t think people would change their minds. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not a massive loss to culture and a loss and and a travesty that people are giving up all of these decisions very early on in their lives. What I’m seeing a lot is like young men who experience their own sex drive as something either like really annoying or like truly pathological like you know God I was looking at this woman and you know at the gym and I looked at her her breasts and it’s like is that okay? It’s like and it’s just like it’s an extreme scrupulousness about everything related to their sexuality and you know I was born in a different era and it’s like okay you know don’t stare but of course yeah cop a glance you know she’s pretty it’s like you know it’s and that’s not it’s kind of not that big of a deal as long as you have some conscientiousness about it and it’s just a part of yourself. It’s like you you you Yeah. You gravitate. You’re attracted. You look and Yeah. But they don’t have a frame that that’s kind of okay in certain I think it’s Yeah. They’re taught that all of this stuff is bad and it’s and it’s wrong and it’s like it’s it’s I think a big part of it is having self-control and that is big part of being being a man in general. So, it’s it’s being aware that you have, you know, a proclivity to to whatever to be a bit more aggressive, but it’s also knowing that you have to control that and temper that and that’s there’s two parts to it and it doesn’t need to be this negative thing. We very often take the most extreme examples of bad men and then paint the whole group as if they are the same. Um, and that I that causes a lot of distress. I mean, it it did for me, but again, probably cuz I was predisposed, probably because of what happened to me, but also because you grow up thinking that all that stuff is bad because you’re told it’s bad and then you you don’t connect with who you are in a very good way, if that it’s funny. It does. It does make sense. I like what you’re saying and I think it’s true what both of you are saying. And it’s interesting as a woman, you’re kind of told, it’s drumed into you every 10 seconds that celebrating our sexuality is so joyous. You know what I mean? You go, girl, take your top off. You’re beautiful. Do you know what I mean? That it’s so different if you follow me. It’s it’s extraordinary. Now, I’m not saying like because you know that we came from very different places, but where we are now, I’m not saying that’s where I came from. I certainly didn’t come from that. Where we are now, it’s a it’s a feeling of, you know, you’re meant to lean into the joy of your sex drive, which is perhaps your lifegiving energy is the kind of what you hear in women’s circles if you follow me. This is where your power is. This is your force. While men are in this, which is kind of feels like where I came from, this kind of don’t like sex, it’s bad, you know, put it away. Yeah. They’re told to not not not accept it and not control it. Whereas yeah, women have it. It’s a very strange situation we’ve ended up in. It doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. It it feels like the cultural dynamic is is this. I can see if I can do it on screen. It’s like come here, see me sexually. Don’t you dare see me sexually. And like there’s it’s like ah what do I do? What a double bind. You know, how dare you? How dare you after I was told to run around with my top off. How dare you think of like it’s just it’s it’s there has to be some sort of kind of understanding that there’s a middle ground here. It’s awful. It’s literally mindmelting. And you know these I just think of these boys and girls like grappling with their sexual kind of awakening between 10 and 20. And at the same time as all that complicated, let’s face it, high level complication stuff is going on. They’re being kind of fed this kind of awful porn through their porn bones at such an early age. No wonder they just think, “What the hell is sex?” Like, just where do I even start? I I think it’s as well. I mean, there’s so many things online and it’s almost being like rewarded now doing that sort of stuff. You know, we obviously have the women who are influencers for having sex with as many men as well. I don’t even know what you would call them that. Yeah. So you have all of these messages going out on one side and then men it’s so confusing. It must be so confusing to grow up. It was it was confusing enough when I was growing up, but it now it’s it’s much worse. And I I do think as well get the internet I think that the the porn thing is an issue, but I do think that more the issue is this kind of massive flow of information that’s freely available to everyone at any time. And I think, you know, you could you can say that the porn thing is a big part of that, and it is, but I do think it’s more just the availability of information to young people. I think that the internet probably shouldn’t shouldn’t be allowed for under 18s. Like, I don’t actually know if there’s any other way to to look at it, but it just feels like it’s not a logical place to allow kids to be on, period. And I don’t know how you would enforce that. I think it’s like an individual thing. you know, I actually wasn’t really on it. The only time I went on it was when I was growing up a bit, but one one of those flash points when I was 18, I found out about trans and then I ended up feeling. So, even to me in an individual level, I I wasn’t even on social media until I was 25 because I went on for work. Um, so those were all through forums and stuff at that time. But I I do think the internet is a and is a big part of the issue. Basically, when you’re on the internet and you exist within this space, it’s like existing within a crowded kind of a crowded space where you have a lack of kind of social roles, you have a lack of people to be. If you’re ousted on the internet for doing something bad, you can’t like we would have in the past just leave, find a new tribe, create something new. That history has always stuck to you. So, you have this like limited you have this limited space which you can move within and be as you. And when when you’ve exhausted, when you’ve made so many mistakes, you’re then stuck and you’re kind of stuck into this new hole of or this new pigeon hole of the person you are. Your identity is kind of cemented. Whereas pre- internet, you could move town. You could, you know, worst case and it invents an entire new life. With the internet, you basically can’t. Genspec’s Bigger Picture Conference series returns for its fourth landmark international event this September the 27th and 28th, Saturday and Sunday in Albuquerque in New Mexico. At this time we’re not just analyzing problems, we’re shaping the solution. We’re looking for a way forward and we’ve chosen the best speakers, the best leading thinkers of our generation to discuss how we can move the dial with the theme live not by lies conversation for a culture in crisis. This year’s conference tackles one of the most urgent challenges of our time. How to speak truth in the face of conformity, confusion, and institutional pressure. As the politicization of sex and gender continues to divide societies and derail thoughtful discourse and destroy loving and engaged families, this groundbreaking counterpoint to WPATH brings together the world’s leading thinkers, clinicians, policy makers, lawyers, politicians, and psychologists to forge a path that is ethical, evidence-based, and grounded in reality. Abigail Schwar will expose the hidden consequences of VAD therapy. Dr. Lisa Litmer will present her latest groundbreaking research. Lionel Shrivever lays bare how society’s fixation on trans identity distorts truth and undermines fundamental freedoms. Peter Bagosian will present truth over lies, bold conversations in a fractured culture. Dr. Patrick Lepard will discuss the impact of trans surgery while Dr. Dr. Quinton Van Meter will discuss the impact of hormones. Following defining events in Clari, Ireland, in Denver, Colorado, in Lisbon, Portugal, we’re now coming to Albuquerque in New Mexico. This is more than just a conference. It’s a call to action. Join us for 2 days of unflinching honesty, rigorous evidence, and solution focused collaboration. It’s time to move the dial, and you need to be in the room. Visit jenspec.org to secure your place. It was something you said earlier about, you know, with children it’s it what strikes me is that it when I was growing up, which was not that long ago, there was kind of a sense of an adult world and a child world. And now that has been erased via the internet in part, but also I mean it’s like we’re talking to like here in California where I’m at, we’re talking to six-year-olds about their sexuality. It’s like that is so there’s so many boundary violations there. So much conflation of adult and child worlds. Yeah. I I I’m kind of losing patience with those sort of people because it is just like I just can’t I can’t understand in anyone’s mind what leads them to a place where they think that’s appropriate in any sense. It doesn’t it doesn’t make any sense. It’s it’s it’s beyond logic which which then leads you to the place which where you just feel there must be an ulterior motive because it just doesn’t on any logical thinking person’s level. It’s completely bonkers. And it’s what’s also bonkers is is all the enablers. You know, it’s the enablers that I have a particularly problem with because that’s where all the power is. That’s where all the numbers are. That’s where all, you know, where we could actually stand up and make a change. This didn’t have to happen. If the enablers had actually just plugged in and thought about what they were saying, we wouldn’t be in this mess. We just wouldn’t, you know, and it’s the enablers that allowed it. There’s always going to be villains with nefarious and weird and wicked missions. They’ve always existed. It’s the enablers that have the power to create a good society or a bad society. And they also have the power to oust the likes of us. No one want to be grandiose, but the people who speak up against it. That they could just zip it when somebody else speaks the truth, but instead they turn on themselves. I I’m sounding very bitter and I am bitter. I’m very bit of that. No, I think it’s fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it it’s bonkers to me that just a basic sentence of, you know, like I I want I think kids should be allowed if you say the words I think kids should be allowed puberty blockers out loud, people should be like that’s a weird thing to say. Like it should have been like at that point to begin with. It is a weird thing to say. You can’t say out loud without sounding weird. We’ve got a gorgeous product. Well, is it a product initiative project um in Genpect? We’re just launching it. it’ll be out by the time this is on. Um, which is a memorandum of understanding on the role of puberty in adolescence. And so protecting the fact that like adolescents need to go through puberty from child to adolescent to adult like it’s a fundamental stage that should be protected. Now we all knew this up until 10 years ago. But now we have to actually bring in legislation or policy or mindset so people can understand that that is actually something that’s to be protected for somebody to have a future. It just doesn’t it doesn’t make any sense. It really doesn’t when you really like like those sort of things. I mean those are Yeah. They’re mindbogglingly stupid. Um people think that. When I first met you what did you think 10 years ago had somebody said something about let’s say puberty blockers or any of that sort of stuff? when I was when I when I first experienced it, like I said around six, seven, that sort of age, it was very very clearly linked to and in a physical way the physical abuse I went through. So there is no way that I would have even known what you were talking about. But when I was about the 16th, the second flash point, I if you would I would have taken them for sure. Um because it was like an option not to be me. It was an option to be someone else like and and and also they the way they were sold. the way they were told. Like I always think about this. If I was born 5 years ago, I think I would have ended up transitioning. What age are you? I’m 31 now. I think you’re right. I think the age there’s a certain age that got I just escaped it. And I think Yeah, cuz I had I had long hair. I was into tech. I wasn’t like girly girly. Like I wasn’t a very feminine boy in this in one sense, but I wasn’t like masculine in the sense. I hated sports. I liked tech. I would I fit all of the criteria for what the the RGD boys are happening now. And you know, I was mistaken for a girl all the time. My name’s Asha. Probably didn’t help with that. Um and then I but then kind of yeah, in in secondary school as well, I remember when I first went, someone said someone thought a girl was in the men’s toilet. So, it was something that happened all the time. If this ideology had existed, I think there probably would have been a teacher that suggested it or there would have been someone who like it would have just I mean I can’t obviously I can’t say I’m speculating but I do think that yeah I I think 100% I think I fit all the criteria for someone who’s uh being pushed towards it now who isn’t necessarily going to grow up to you know be a a a homosexual is maybe just going to grow up to be a more sensitive boy like it doesn’t Yeah. Could I ask you because we’re coming towards the end. What do you think that boy because I think we all know that boy, that sensitive, really lovely boy needs because I don’t think they’re getting it from society. I think they’re really being really there’s no place for those sensitive boys these days. It feels I think they need to be the things they’re intrinsically interested in need to stop. This is all big macro changes, but I think it is true is is they need to be celebrated. The things they’re intrinsically interested. So tech, gaming, all of these spaces that seem unimportant from the surface are very important to these type of boys because if you break it down, gaming is just chess and then chess is like it’s just a mind thing. It’s just something that some men likes to be competitive with their bodies, some men like to be competitive with their minds. Um these spaces, coding, developing, all of them are all about competition within someone’s mind. So to turn around and constantly say as society, these spaces need to be more women. they need to be more women friendly. I mean, we even saw it with chess to an extent. It was actually a good series, but that series that, you know, focused on a female chess player. It was it was kind of fun. But what I mean is like it was very much pushing the idea that the only reason that there aren’t women in chess is because the men are one way or another. And all of that may or may not be true. But true or no, it’s not true. But um the fact is I just think that we need to celebrate these mental compositions and mental statuses that men seek more than we do. We don’t need to say like the gaming industry is all men and it’s misogynistic. All of this sort of stuff. We need to push, you know, they need to stop saying naughty words in private chat rooms where no one but their mom could hear them. Um and all of these sort of things. It needs to be pushed more like these are kind of men’s spaces and women are welcome in them. It’s not the same argument as like a restroom or whatever, but they are geared towards men and they always were geared towards men. They’re spaces for men to be as they are. And there’s no reason why there couldn’t be an all male dev team who created a great game. There’s no reason why that can’t be true. There’s no reason why it has to have this diversity in it. has to have this um you know some some level of uh transness in it or something like that. That needs to completely stop because it’s also the other thing about those group of men is they are also the easiest to bully. Um they’ll they’ll be the most cowtow they’ll be the most to kind of come down those sort of things. So there is a protection level that’s not offered to them that’s that’s in other parts of society. And I do think I think a lot of the problem is that we we don’t have the level of kind of respect for the fact that there is a large amount of men who seek status through playing mental games essentially. And I think that’s what is being cut out and we’re we’re assuming that women want to do the same thing when some women do but those women usually end up in those industries anyway. Like nothing will stop them. those sort of women who really want to be in the tech industry, who really want to be in coding and trading or whatever, they will end up there no matter what cuz that’s what they want to do, but they’re not the general population of women, if that makes sense. It’s more of a male oriented thing. So I do think that yeah I I think it’s like a what we could do for those young men is let them know that what they want to do is still manly and it’s not you should become like you should move towards that cuz we’re also target in this whole breadth in all of this it’s also still targeting the group of men who are more towards the autistic spectrum like it’s all of these things in one and it’s I think it’s just a perfect storm to get these people to end up thinking for whatever reason that they may or may not be, you know, trans. And I do think that’s why we see a bigger explosion of it. I also think that’s why we see a bigger explosion of like, you know, in I think it’s all kind of linked and we don’t have enough time to get into it all, but I think all of this stuff with men is is linked into one kind of social malaise in that there isn’t enough social roles. There isn’t enough things to grow up and be that are celebrated by society and men intrinsically need to be celebrated by society. So much of what you’ve said really resonates with me. Uh, and I can see a real evolution in the last several last couple decades. When I was growing up, I could still have male heroes who were my heroes were intellectuals and artists. And so I had something I could work towards. I had I knew that I could or hoped that I could kind of become one of those guys. And that is lost especially when you look at what’s happening in academia. all prior academic all prior academics and intellectuals have been discredited for whatever reason and now young geeks and I’m kind of in that category like they don’t have those heroes to emulate they you know it’s like it’s not there. Um could I ask something else because I’m dying to ask you about it. I hope you don’t mind me asking about it. Your dad is David Bailey. hero like what an extraordinary for those who don’t know am I right in saying that he kind of the photographer of the 1960s very I I I would say that like prior to him it was a lot of girls in frocks in silly poses and he sounds silly but it was a big thing at the time is he took kind of the first picture of a girl behind a chain length chain link fence wearing a leather jacket and it kind of changed the direction of fashion quite a lot since it truly did a a real um iconic like David Bi you don’t get more famous as a photographer extraordinary now I’m going over somewhere different what do you think being the child of somebody so famous of this kind of um so many famous people’s kids transing so Robert Dairo I loved his kid Charlie’s Cynthia Nixon from Sex in the City there’s so many of them sher Sh all these famous people obviously Elon Musk um have you any thoughts on all that? Yes. So um I think that broadly very broadly speaking we can categorize what’s happening and why in western cultures we see it more not necessarily completely there are outliers but in the why we see this type of identity crisis I’m not talking about like the third gender thing or anything like that um this kind of identity crisis more is because I think that in um societies that have low survival pressures and a high affluence uh generally also have a lack of social roles and that causes us to fall into a phenomenon that is called a behavioral sync which was um termed by a guy called John Calhoun which is uh in the 1970s he did all these experiments on mice where he basically gave them limited space but unlimited food and all the experiments turned out differently but what in one of them what he found is that the mice uh the male mice separated into three groups one of them that became obsessed with self grooming and didn’t want to mate, which is highly unusual for mice. Um, another one that whenever the male mice had that lost out of mating, they all cuz they couldn’t leave the enclosure, they all gathered in the center and burst into random acts of violence. And then the third group are more aggressive and took like a he uses the term harim of women. But basically, this scale and this metric applies to kind of a something that appears with overabundance and low survival pressures. I think that famous kids fit broadly speaking the highest level of these things. So the other the the interesting part though is the low survival pressures thing. A lot of people bring up the fact that a lot of people from poor backgrounds are transitioning too. But if you’re in the UK or America, it’s very unlikely you’re going to starve. It’s not impossible, but it’s pretty much unheard of. So you would still fit the bill for the low survival pressures part. The lack of social roles could happen at either end of the spectrum because at the high end of the spectrum, you have a lack of options due to the fact that you’re born into a role. At the low end of the spectrum, you have a lack of options due to the fact that you don’t have the financial means or you may have um a disruptive health environment. So, you still fall into that idea that you can’t really be a whole lot, but if you change your entire identity, then you can. And it’s a very long-winded answer, but I think very broadly speaking and individual reasons and uh mid-level and micro reasons and micro and individual, but I think that the reason we see it in general and this identity malaise is something very similar to the reason that he saw it in the mice in affluent countries because it isn’t it correlates with a lot of other things. And and I talk about this I may as well show my book now. Um but I I talk about this in my book. is actually the main theme other than talking about myself a bit. Um the main theme is this idea that we essentially this all boils down to a lack of social roles for everyone involved and that’s a very broad way of looking at it but it’s a lack of things to be and a lack of things to gravitate towards and how we can fix that is different for everyone but I I the reason that famous kids point this out to us the most is it’s it’s present throughout all history that the celebrity class or the upper class tends to do this in societies which are at peak or near to peak in um the the example I always go to is in ancient Rome there’s a thing called the satires which is about 100 years before 100 to 200 years before the main fall of Rome um where he says we are now suffering the calamities of long peace luxury greater than any foe has laid her hand upon us and avenges a conquered world and I think that that speaks to something that happens throughout history in one way or another and I think very broadly speaking we tend to see it with the ruling/ce celebrity class first and then it starts to trickle down to other people. And that’s what the the subject of my next book is looking into the history part because I’ll be honest that it’s it’s brief but I do think there is a pattern that can be established. Wow. So much of what you just said seems so next level like you’re just giving us lots of new ways of conceiving of something and I think it’s brilliant. Well, I work in, you know, tech and marketing so I’m framing things. That’s what I’m doing. No, no, but but I do genuinely think like there is a pattern to be established here and it is very obvious that to me this all links to a lack of social roles. I agree. Lack of social roles. I I think you you’re really you you’ve fascinated me as I’ve watched you over the last year. It really fascinated me and where you went. Everybody else went lots of different way but where you went I really really enjoyed following where you were going because I think it’s brilliant. I think you’re brilliant. Go on, tell us more about your book. Let’s talk. The book is um the book is try to hit the pool which is uh like take the lead, try to hit the pool. Uh it’s the subtitle is modern men behavioral sync because I am focusing mostly on men. The first half of the book talks about how we kind of got here for men. Why men might feel the way they do, why some might become incels, why some might gravitate towards like Andrew Tate, why others might choose to transition. And I talk about the transmaxes. I also talk about uh a little bit from Brave New World because this idea of a lack of social roles is actually brought up in that and I thought it was really interesting that he had in god I think it’s chapter 17 but it might be 16 when he’s talking to Msuia Mond about um the idea of why isn’t everyone just bred to be an alpha cuz they breed people in their societies to be different casts. And he says we tried it once on an island and the result was predictable. after a time they all wanted the best roles. So they basically the whole society collapsed. So when people don’t have their roles they they fall into that. And then I go on to talk about the idea that basically my thesis in it all is the idea that within this kind of behavioral sync the problem is a lack of space or a lack of like roles to fit into within a space. So I looked at Japan and they have a thing called the hikamorei phenomenon there and they think throughout the studies that you read. Sometimes it’s actually mostly women. It’s it’s men and women this effects. But they think throughout the studies that only like 50% or so can actually be attributed to mental illness. Something else is going on. And Tokyo is literally the most explain to people what a hikamorei is. So hikamorei uh literally translates to to pull oneself into a room. And it’s a section of Japanese society. I think there’s almost a million of them now who decide to live their entire lives within a room. It can be young, it’s generally young people, can be men or women, but it affects all ages and they don’t want to participate in the society. And while some of them still maintain jobs, but they never leave their house um or never leave one room. And this has been growing. I think they’ve been dealing with it since like the 2000s. and they the the researchers in it say that they basically only about 50% can be attributed to direct mental illness. It depends on the study you’re looking at, but they think there’s something bigger is going on. They don’t really say what that is, but they do point to the idea that Japanese society is too difficult and they can’t fit into it. So, they’re pulling themselves out of it. Again, the same kind of I think the same we have the same impact with the incelss and people like that, but they’re choosing it more for the mating market. And then the the general idea of the first section of the book is that the internet functions like a crowded city. So we have a lack of social roles because we’re connected to the internet. Young people this affects the most. And then we’re not able to leave, you know, to establish new social roles. So it functions in the same way that in John Calhoun’s mouse utopia, this limited space with abundant resources works the same way in a kind of metaphysical way for people online. And the second part of the book is my story. And then the third part of the book, which is quite in depth, which which kind of relates um and then the third part of the book is kind of where I ended up and where a lot of these things I think are impacting people. I I do a chapter about um the theories on transgenderism, which was painful to my mind to just all of it is so all over the place. Um and then uh a little bit about kind of the turf movement and how I think a lot of them very misunderstood. And then I kind of end I try and end it with some positivity. So it’s it’s a very it’s like a her I’m hoping it comes across as a her a hero’s journey for the reader rather than a hero’s journey for any individual character. That’s the the goal. It’s all of my thoughts over the last year after really looking into this. And what I think is the problem, how we can identify it and maybe how we can help. And in calling it a behavioral sync, I think at least that gives us ingredients to what creates the basic breeding ground for people to have these abnormal behaviors. Not necessarily that gives us like a, you know, a full cure because there’s no such thing in and that sort of stuff, but it it at least tells us that okay, well, we can’t lower survival pressures because it’s important that we have, you know, we don’t want that, but we can introduce more social roles. So it’s kind of like a there is some solution here to help people and it’s not just about trans. about you know like I said the general malaise of young people the the incelss the whole the whole thing it can potentially the idea of just providing more things and it’s a very simple idea coming back to providing more things for people to do for people to be will help people and we can do that in our individual lives we can do that in wider society we can do that through our actions and I think that can that can help when is it coming out um it’s it’s currently the 11 10th of July but um I’m I’m going to work out I to wrangle with Amazon because I’ve never done it before. So, I’ll work out when it comes out, but it’ll be 10th of July deadline. Would you mind putting it on the screen again? I just want to try to hit the pool. Yeah. Oh, I like it. And I’m changing the the title. It’s um But yeah, it’s um and I the uh it’s like the the Pink Floyd. Yeah. Very clever. I did. Yeah. So, it’s like Yeah. I I don’t know what it I think it looks nice. Um, I did the design, the design, the formatting, the editing, literally everything is done by me. So, it’s um, it’s been like a labor of of love of what I wanted to produce. Um, there’s no I have no publicist. I have no um, what do you call them? Uh, no help whatsoever other than uh, spellch check and a few other things. So, it’s it’s been something that’s it’s purely from me. Did you once tell me you’re dyslexic? I I am. It’s been a struggle. I’ve had I have, to be fair, Lucy has helped me a lot by reading it over and making sure it makes sense. But um I I must say with all the tools out there now, it’s a lot easier to get grammar right uh than it used to be. Well, I know this has been mindblowing. Thank you so much. It’s It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thank you. [Music] [Music]

What happens when extreme trauma, tech culture, and gender ideology collide? Sascha Bailey’s journey from nearly transitioning in Tokyo to becoming a leading voice on male detransition reveals uncomfortable truths about control and identity. Diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” in 10 minutes, prescribed HRT on the spot, Bailey escaped Japan overnight—and slowly unraveled everything he thought he knew. Now expecting a child with his partner, he’s decoded the “transmaxing” movement, exposed how tech rewards transition, and discovered why mice in utopia start acting like humans in crisis. His message: “I don’t know what gender dysphoria means anymore.” As society strips away male social roles, Bailey asks: What happens when you can’t be anything, so you try to be someone else?

About Sascha Bailey

Sascha Bailey is a tech entrepreneur, marketer, and author who nearly transitioned at age 28 while living in Japan. Son of iconic photographer David Bailey, he brings a unique perspective on identity, social pressure, and the intersection of tech culture with gender ideology. After escaping an abusive relationship and leaving Japan overnight, he gradually stepped back from transition. A childhood sexual abuse survivor, Bailey now frames his three “gender episodes” as attempts to gain control when he had none. His book “Try to Hit the Pool: Modern Man and Behavioral Sink” explores why affluent societies produce identity crises. He lives in the UK with his partner and is expecting his first child.

🎧 Read the full show notes here: https://stellaomalley.substack.com/p/the-algorithm-of-transition-techs

📌 CHAPTERS
00:00 – Trailer
00:38 – Why tech culture encourages transition
02:15 – Autism, identity, and external pressure
04:05 – PTSD, dissociation, and gender
06:22 – Diagnosed in 10 minutes in Tokyo
08:40 – Why it made logical sense to transition
11:45 – Transmaxxing, data, and career advantage
15:22 – Escaping trauma, regaining control
19:03 – Future of bionics and body modification
22:41 – The algorithm of self-creation
27:10 – What boys today are really struggling with
32:00 – Identity, gaming, and lack of social roles
36:00 – The mixed messaging boys receive
39:00 – Overexposure to information and identity crisis
44:00 – Puberty blockers and the loss of common sense
47:00 – Why famous kids often transition
50:00 – What sensitive boys need
55:00 – Sasha’s book and theory of social role collapse

Disclaimer: The discussions in this episode are for educational and informational purposes only. They are not intended as a substitute for mental health services.

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🔹 YouTube | 🔹 Substack | 🔹 Spotify | 🔹 Apple Podcasts
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