"There are people who as young children, will be forever surgically mutilated and altered and their lives will never be the same. There are people who have taken an oath as physicians, the Hippocratic Oath, who are violating it every day by going ahead and making money off of this fake ideology."
Award-winning investigative journalist Gerald Posner, author of thirteen books including the bestselling PHARMA, joins Stella and Mia to discuss the financial incentives driving pediatric gender medicine. Drawing parallels between the opioid crisis and the current trans medical scandal, Posner reveals how pharmaceutical companies profit from creating lifelong patients and why mainstream media refuses to investigate this story.
About Gerald Posner
Gerald Posner is an award-winning investigative journalist and author of thirteen books, including New York Times bestsellers Case Closed, Why America Slept, and God's Bankers. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. A former Wall Street lawyer, Posner was one of the youngest attorneys (23) ever hired by Cravath, Swaine & Moore. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from the University of California at Berkeley and earned his J.D. from Hastings Law School.
His investigative career began when he spent years representing Holocaust survivors who had been experimented on by Dr. Josef Mengele, leading to his first book Mengele: The Complete Story (1986). Since then, he has tackled subjects ranging from political assassinations to the Vatican's finances to the pharmaceutical industry.
The Chicago Tribune called Posner "a merciless little pitbull of an investigator," while The New York Times praised his work as "a withering and encyclopedic indictment of a drug industry that often seems to prioritize profits over patients…[it] reads like a pharmaceutical version of cops and robbers." He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, author Trisha Posner, who collaborates on all his projects.
From Wall Street Lawyer to Investigative Journalist
Gerald describes his journey from being "one of the youngest attorneys ever hired" at a prestigious Wall Street firm to becoming an investigative journalist. His pro bono work representing Holocaust survivors who had been experimented on by Dr. Mengele consumed "three or four years" and resulted in 25,000 pages of documents. This experience led him to co-author his first book with British journalist John Ware. "I loved the process of doing the book," he explains, noting how he prefers to switch subjects rather than staying in one field: "I like to move on to a subject about which I know nothing."
Further reading:
Mengele: the complete story by Gerald Posner and John Ware
The Dark History of Big Pharma
Posner provides a sweeping history of the pharmaceutical industry, revealing how major drug companies got their start manufacturing morphine during the American Civil War. He explains how Bayer marketed heroin as a cure for morphine addiction and "for overactive children," noting there were "no prescriptions, by the way, needed at this time."
The pattern of creating addictive drugs continued through the decades - from Valium becoming "the number one drug in the world for 15 years" to the modern opioid crisis. As Posner explains, "The drug industry...is just built in terms of money."
Further reading:
PHARMA: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America by Gerald Posner
Dopesick by Beth Macy
Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
The Opioid Crisis as a Template
Drawing parallels between the opioid epidemic and pediatric gender medicine, Posner discusses how Dr. Russell Portnoy promoted the false claim that "less than 1% get addicted" to opioids - a statistic based on a deeply flawed study. "He was complaining about the fact that there were these pill mill doctors," Posner notes, but Portnoy "still had some inkling to try to defend the idea that if it was dispensed in the way that he thought it should be dispensed...it might be better."
This mirrors current claims about "less than 1% regret rates" in gender medicine. As Mia observes, both Portnoy and current gender clinicians believe "their motivations are pure...they're on a quest to ease suffering when they're causing so much pain."
Further reading:
Dreamland by Sam Quinones
Following the Money in Gender Medicine
Posner explains why pharmaceutical companies view trans patients as ideal customers: "What you want are patients who are chronically ill or they have to take medication for life." He notes that while trans numbers are "still small," the industry has created "a patient for life" requiring hormones and ongoing medical care.
He reveals how AbbVie's Lupron generates "$4 billion a year in sales," with "maybe a billion or a billion and a half" coming from off-label use as puberty blockers. Despite never being FDA-approved for gender dysphoria, these drugs are prescribed to children through off-label dispensing - a practice Posner argues should be restricted for minors.
Further reading:
The Media's Failure to Investigate
Posner shares his frustration with mainstream media's refusal to cover this story. His investigative pieces on puberty blockers were rejected by multiple major publications before the Wall Street Journal published a condensed version as an op-ed in June 2023. Even with his extensive publishing history - "13 books, four New York Times bestsellers...finalist for the Pulitzer" - he faces constant rejection on trans-related stories.
"There could be more, there should be more just solid reporters and journalists covering this subject," he observes, noting that many avoid it because "they worry about the consequences in their career." He wonders if his trans-critical writing affects his ability to place other articles: "The next time I submit an op-ed to the New York Times, somebody from the Times going to look at that and say, well, we don't want Posner writing anything for us because he's gender critical."
Further reading:
The Truth About 'Puberty Blockers' - Gerald Posner (Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2023)
The Challenge of Informed Consent for Children
Posner, drawing on his legal background, argues that the concept of informed consent is fundamentally flawed when applied to children making irreversible medical decisions. "Teens do not have the ability, minors don't have the understanding of real long-term risk. They don't appreciate what that means. They can't understand something as a never-ending consequence."
He proposes a higher standard for informed consent when it comes to "voluntary surgery" for minors: "It requires a different level to be met. And the reason I say that is because then we get to debate the idea of gender affirming."
Further reading:
Cultural Momentum and Hope for Change
While acknowledging the challenges, particularly in progressive areas like California where students are told "you're brave" for identifying as trans, the hosts discuss signs of change. Mia notes that Canadian teachers report the social contagion among youth "is dying out," with classes going from having "at least one trans identified kid" every year back to "none, maybe one every now and again."
Stella expresses optimism about Europe, where "the consensus is pediatric transition is mad," while fearing it may become "this weird red blue gun laws eternal argument" in America. Gerald finds hope in unlikely alliances, describing a Supreme Court rally where "Christian fundamentalists and Muslim parents and Orthodox Jewish parents and atheist parents" united on this issue: "Nothing can bring together in this polarized world, Muslims, Jews, Christians and atheists on the same side of an issue except for this."
Further reading:
As of now, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the UK, Italy, and France have all taken steps to restrict pediatric access to puberty blocker
Follow Gerald Posner
Website: posner.com
Substack:
Latest Book: PHARMA: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America
If you've ever felt like something bigger is happening but struggled to make sense of it, Beyond Gender is for you. This podcast cuts through the noise with honest, thoughtful discussions about one of the most pressing topics of our time.
🎧 Watch & Listen
New episodes every Thursday on:
🔔 Follow Our Hosts
💬 What did you think of the episode? Tell us in the comments!
Share this post