Paul Garcia-Ryan identified as a woman from age 15 to age 30, then chose to detransition. Today he is a licensed clinical social worker and the president of Therapy First, and he argues that the debate over gender and young people has a lot less to do with sides than the culture war makes it look.

Paul joins Ryan Vet to share his story in his own words: an early childhood sense that he was different, his medical, social, and legal transition, and his training as a psychotherapist at a leading gender clinic in New York City. He explains what changed once younger patients began arriving in his own practice, and how that led him to rethink gender dysphoria and his own history.

Paul now works with young people and their families, and with trans adults, and leads Therapy First, a nonprofit focused on raising the standard of care in youth mental health. He and Ryan talk about how the field has shifted from a mental health model toward a medical model, why therapists often talk past each other because they use the same terms with different definitions, and how a generation raised on algorithms and social media forms its identity differently than the one before it.

For parents, Paul's advice is to stay curious about what your child is experiencing, however frightening it feels, and to avoid locking horns, because a family in conflict is a family under strain. For clinicians, he describes therapy first as the established standard of care, and says every therapist should hold a young person's identity with an open palm. His closing call: this is an all-hands-on-deck moment for the mental health profession, and it needs leaders to step up.

This episode reflects one person's lived experience and professional views. It is not medical or mental health advice. If you or someone you love needs support, please reach out to a licensed professional.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Paul's personal story, in his own words, and why he decided to detransition
• What he saw in his practice when the young people arriving at gender clinics changed
• How the field moved from a mental health model toward a medical model
• Why therapists talk past each other, and why he says there is an illusion of sides
• How algorithms and social media shape identity formation in adolescence
• What he tells parents: stay curious, and avoid locking horns with your child
• What therapy first means as a standard of care, and why leaders in the field need to step up

CONNECT WITH THERAPY FIRST

• Website: therapyfirst.org

GO DEEPER WITH COLLIDE

Ryan writes about generational shifts in leadership, work, and culture every week in his COLLIDE newsletter. Read it free: ryanvet.com/collide

ABOUT THE RYAN VET SHOW

The Ryan Vet Show is a podcast about generations, culture, leadership, and the future. Host Ryan Vet is a USA Today bestselling author, generational futurist, and keynote speaker with more than 1,000 live in-person presentations.

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Thursday, October 15: a new COLLIDE essay episode.

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Ryan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold.

If you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of culture and society, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter:
👉 https://ryanvet.com/collide

Alaska spent forty years renaming one mountain. Now it takes thirty days and a database, and the past gets rewritten right along with the future.

Generational futurist Ryan Vet reads his COLLIDE essay on what happens when renaming a place stops being a slow, public process and becomes a database edit. He remembers the mnemonics he learned as a kid for the Great Lakes and the planets, and how hard it is to rewrite memory. Then he flew to the Caribbean in February over a map that read Gulf of Mexico on the way down and Gulf of America on the way back.

The polling did not move with the map. A Marquette Law School poll found 71 percent of Americans opposed renaming the Gulf, including 82 percent of independents. Ryan's point is not whether you favor the change. It is the speed. Within weeks, the EPA, the FAA, NOAA, Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing, Britannica, Rand McNally, BP, and Chevron had all updated. The EPA's page on the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster now carries the new name, which rewrites the name of a historical moment where eleven men died.

From there he follows the pattern. Fort Bragg became Fort Liberty and then Fort Bragg again, three signs in three years, with a different Bragg behind the name. Gen Alpha spreads six seven through recess with no mandate at all. Master bedroom becomes primary suite. Language has always changed, but now it changes faster than human memory can keep up.

The frame is the Velocity Gap. The Persian royal road took couriers nine days to cover what normally took three months, and Alaska needed forty years to rename one mountain. Today one person retypes an entry and two billion Google Maps users see it instantly. Orwell's slogan applies: who controls the past controls the future.

In this episode:

• How the Gulf of America and Lake Ontario renamings spread across maps and databases in weeks
• Why the Marquette poll and the speed of the change are two different stories
• The Deepwater Horizon page and what it means to rename a historical moment
• Fort Bragg, Fort Liberty, and the two Braggs
• Top-down renaming versus bottom-up language change, from six seven to primary suite
• The Persian royal road, Alaska's forty-year petition, and the Velocity Gap
• Why Ryan will always call it Lake Ontario

Go deeper: Read the original essay at ryanvet.com/collide. Ryan writes about generational shifts in leadership, work, and culture every week in his COLLIDE newsletter. Read it free at ryanvet.com/collide.

Send us Fan Mail

Ryan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold.

If you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of culture and society, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter:
👉 https://ryanvet.com/collide

One in four teenagers told researchers they had sought emotional support from a chatbot. The president of Elon University says that is a very different student than a decade ago.

Dr. Connie Ledoux Book is the president of Elon University, Ryan Vet's alma mater. She joins Ryan to answer the question he hears most from listeners and COLLIDE readers: what is going on with higher education, and will colleges still be around when his kids get there?

Her starting point is a Gallup finding that public confidence in higher education is declining, and that the decline is nonpartisan. Republicans, Democrats, and independents are all trending down. She ties it to rising costs, graduates carrying debt without the career payoff they were promised, and a sector that has to do a better job of listening to employers. Her counterweight: "Not everybody needs to go to college, but everybody needs to make a living." And her bet that face-to-face education will still exist in a hundred years, even if it becomes the more expensive option.

Then the conversation turns to the generation arriving on campus. More STEM-minded, more double majors, and purpose first, profession second. Elon's answer includes a free January course on finding purpose. But they also communicate through tools institutions barely reach, and Elon's own study with a Washington Post placement found teens preferring a chatbot because it will not judge them. Ryan pushes back with his friction thesis: you need friction in life, because that is how we learn.

With colleges merging and closing across the country, she also explains why Elon is merging with Queens University in Charlotte, and what consolidation means for the future of higher education.

The last stretch looks 25 years out. She describes trusting a self-driving car after 30 minutes, a coming $20,000 household robot, and the question she says matters most. If machines give us back our time, what will the next generation do with it?

In this episode:

• Why public confidence in higher education is falling across party lines, and what colleges owe students who take on debt
• Why she believes face-to-face education will exist in a hundred years
• Why college consolidation is accelerating, and the Elon and Queens University merger
• How AI is forcing faculty to rethink how learning gets measured
• Why Gen Z is putting purpose first and profession second
• The study showing one in four teens sought emotional support from a chatbot, and Ryan's case for friction
• What happens to a generation when robots hand back the time

Connect with Dr. Connie Ledoux Book:

• Elon University: elon.edu
• Office of the President: elon.edu/u/administration/president

Go deeper: Ryan writes about generational shifts in leadership, work, and culture every week in his COLLIDE newsletter. Read it free at ryanvet.com/collide.

Send us Fan Mail

Ryan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold.

If you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of culture and society, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter:
👉 https://ryanvet.com/collide