9/11, Gender, and the Refusal of Introspection

Let us learn from our mistakes

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“Turn on the TV,” the landlady’s daughter said, from behind the screen door. It was early in the morning in Arizona, where I had moved in late August, 2001 for graduate school. Two of my siblings, my boyfriend and all of my friends were back in New York City, and I had a ticket to return on September 15. I was living in a tiny guest house behind a ranch house on a wide suburban street, and now my neighbor stood among the fig trees to tell me that something bad was happening back home.

I was on the phone with my boyfriend, watching the TV, when the second plane hit.

That’s almost it for my memory of that day. I went to class and my professor scribbled some conspiracy theory about the USS Arizona and the numbers 9 and 11 and 2001 on the chalkboard and I stormed out because I was the lone New Yorker there and I didn’t think that was funny and I had no community and I couldn’t stop shaking.

As someone who had only lived in college towns, the Bay Area and New York City, I had never really been to America before. I’d never occupied a place where the dominant culture was conservative and conforming, where I was the political minority. But I thought that might change after 9/11. I assumed that the country would be forced to look inward, to ask, “What have we done to make people hate us this much? What policies do we need to change? What do we need to learn from this?”

That’s not to say that such an act of violence doesn’t require a forceful response. But in addition to whatever action we planned to take, to find the perpetrators of the attack and somehow achieve justice, I thought we should, and would, take a good hard look at ourselves as a nation.

That assumption was, of course, very, very wrong. 9/11 didn’t usher in an era of political introspection, but rather a double-down, a forever war, an excuse for W to finish his father’s business or finally get his approval. I could not get home to New York City for three weeks, and by that time, everyone I knew had been through some kind of trauma that I hadn’t shared and I felt both adrift and moored, living among people who would never ask the question “What should we have done differently? What should we do differently now?”

But I’ve been asking that question for the past few months. I spent the summer talking to detransitioners, desisters, trans folks who are glad they transitioned but wish doctors had been more honest with them about the realities of it. (Please drop me a line if you’d like to be interviewed for further pieces.) I have talked to therapists and psychiatrists who are deeply concerned about the fast-tracking of pediatric gender medicalization, and feel that there is something wrong in our approach to gender-dysphoric youth, even if they believe fully in the rights of trans people and in serving the needs of trans kids. They are trying to ask what we should be doing differently, and what we should learn from the stories like those I have been listening to.

No one in the left or center media will let them.

These people are writing articles, essays and op-eds, trying to make critical points both to help trans youth who would benefit from transition and to help gender dysphoric youth who may not be persistently trans and wouldn’t benefit from it. They are not doing this because they hate trans people (many of them identify as trans). They are not right-wing. They want to learn from mistakes and do better. They want to tell the truth.

Some have come out against pediatric medical gender transition at all, because of the low-quality evidence and the shocking stories of detransitioners and transition gone wrong—even if there are many stories of success and happiness. Some believe deeply in gender-affirming care and in transitioning youth after careful assessment. Most are anti-ban and want the reform to come from within the medical and mental health communities. Often, instead of being listened to, they are banned from social media for speaking these truths.

We have to demand that the publications we consume and subscribe to let them talk. We have to stop dismissing their concerns as hateful and transphobic. Many are the very opposite, and want to talk because they want to make sure trans youth continue to have access to gender-affirming care.

Let me be clear: I am not comparing 9/11 to what’s happening in this field. But I am saying that amid the successes, there are mistakes, and we shouldn’t ignore them. We should learn from them. That’s actually the best weapon we have against the bans and the best way to help trans youth.

[Photo: PxFuel, Creative Commons]