On X after the interview, Musk mentioned that his youngster was born “homosexual and barely autistic” and claimed these traits “contribute to gender dysphoria.” Wilson shot again quickly after on Threads, dismissing her father’s characterization of her childhood as “totally faux.” She criticized him for peddling dangerous stereotypes about trans and queer folks in “an try and garner sympathy factors.”
“He doesn’t know what I used to be like as a baby as a result of he fairly merely wasn’t there,” the 20-year-old mentioned in a single put up. And when her father was current, Wilson mentioned, he “relentlessly harassed” her for her “femininity and queerness.”
Washington Submit reporters referred to as and texted a cellphone quantity for Wilson however didn’t get a response. Musk didn’t reply to emailed requests for remark from The Submit.
The dispute marks a uncommon public spat between Wilson and Musk, whose frustrations over her transition have been central to his well-documented rightward political shift. Lately, Musk has been embraced by distinguished conservatives equivalent to Tucker Carlson, spoken out in opposition to company variety initiatives and amplified right-wing commentators on social media.
That political shift apparently cemented this month, when Musk endorsed former president Donald Trump within the 2024 election.
On X, the social media platform he owns, he has decried gender pronouns with statements which have drawn backlash, even from these near him.
“I completely assist trans, however all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare,” Musk wrote in late 2020. In response to a tweet earlier that yr the place he wrote “Pronouns suck,” he was admonished by his then-partner Grimes, who requested him to cease and mentioned she couldn’t “assist hate,” information shops reported.
Within the Peterson interview, Musk characterised the gender-affirming remedies that Wilson obtained, together with puberty blockers, as “youngster mutilation and sterilization.”
Musk additionally advised Peterson that allowing youngsters to vary their gender identification is “extremely evil” and that those that advocate for gender-affirming take care of younger folks “ought to go to jail.”
Vivian is certainly one of six youngsters that the billionaire has had with Justine Wilson, a author. He additionally has three youngsters with Grimes, a musician, and three youngsters with Shivon Zilis, an government at Musk’s Neuralink firm.
Many states have banned gender-affirming take care of transgender minors. A majority of People oppose puberty-blocking drugs and hormonal remedies for trans youngsters, in response to a Washington Submit-KFF ballot, though the American Psychological Affiliation has mentioned the power to entry such remedies improves the general well-being of these youths.
Puberty blockers forestall the discharge of intercourse hormones. As soon as a affected person stops taking blockers, their physique instantly returns to producing its natal hormones.
Though Musk used the time period “sterilization,” medical doctors who deal with trans sufferers say puberty blockers alone don’t trigger infertility. Puberty blockers have been used for years on youngsters who expertise precocious puberty, and they’re “reversible it doesn’t matter what,” mentioned Marci Bowers, one of many nation’s preeminent gender transition surgeons and the president of the World Skilled Affiliation for Transgender Well being.
However a affected person’s outcomes will differ primarily based on once they begin on the blockers, whether or not they take cross-sex hormones and the way lengthy they continue to be on the treatment.
After the Peterson interview, Musk was criticized for “deadnaming” his youngster — referring to her by her start identify and gender. Others’ refusal to make use of pronouns that trans- and gender-expansive youths use is a standard, devastating downside for them, in response to the Human Rights Marketing campaign, which says that half of these youths say their household “by no means” refers to them with correct pronouns.
Musk was criticized by LGBTQ+ advocates this yr after he mentioned that “cis” and “cisgender” can be handled as slurs on X. Final yr, he defended a coverage that allowed customers to misgender folks on the platform as a matter of “free speech.”
LBGTQ+ youth are being negatively affected by “hostile political rhetoric that always targets them, together with from high-profile figures like Elon Musk,” mentioned Jared Todd, senior press secretary for the Human Rights Marketing campaign.
“In a world the place Musk might use his public standing for good, he chooses to make use of trans youth as a scapegoat,” Todd mentioned Friday in an emailed assertion to The Submit. “It’s each unhappy and unsurprising given his historical past.”
Lately, Todd mentioned, the HRC has referred to as out Musk for insurance policies which have made X “a spot the place dangerous rhetoric and bullying can unfold unchecked.” He cited Musk’s current resolution to maneuver the headquarters of SpaceX and X away from California in protest of a brand new state regulation barring college districts from requiring dad and mom to be notified of a kid’s change in gender identification.
“Musk’s ignorant and inflammatory views on the trans group — even his personal daughter — are out-of-step with these of a majority of People, and a everlasting stain on his character and fame,” Todd mentioned.
Wilson and Musk have been distant for a while, Wilson advised NBC on Thursday in her first public interview. She formally severed ties with the billionaire greater than two years in the past.
“I now not dwell with or want to be associated to my organic father in any method, form or type,” Wilson said in a petition filed with California Superior Court docket in April 2022, when she sought to formally change her identify.
Wilson’s pushback in opposition to her father has garnered assist on-line, together with from Grimes, the musician who has youngsters with the Tesla CEO.
“I really like and am perpetually endlessly pleased with Vivian,” Grimes mentioned Thursday in an X put up.
