Lisa, you probably saw Helen Lewis' article in The Atlantic yesterday. I thought it was a giant step forward and I think you are partly responsible for bringing that piece into the light if only by the insistent, yet undogmatic way you've pursued this issue. Take a victory lap. You are making a difference. Your voice is important. You helped claim the middle ground by making it safe for people to come forward.
Thank you for being there and for sorting through your reactions, and, most of all, for continuing to try to do something about this "situation," for want of a better word or in the attempt to sanitize what I could have called this absolutely fucking shit show. As a parent with a kid still mired in the horror, I just want to thank you.
When I've seen Kenneth Zucker describe a child he believes might be "true trans" he describes oddly sexed toys and activities, which demonstrate that "brain" something or other he, Blanchard, Cantor and Bailey continue to spout. Just as promoted decades ago by Harry Benjamin and "first well-known transsexual" Christine Jorgensen, it is hype for a profit-making industry. My ex-husband was bothered, he said, "occasionally" by a desire to be "not like my father" (who was physically violent, not socially appropriate, probably had OCD and/or was on the ASD spectrum) which as soon as a PhD psychologist was involved, turned into 'gender dysphoria." He'd heard of Jorgensen's book, Conundrum. There is a very strong thread in the history of the surgeries, of the early "transitioners," advertising, promoting through lecture tours, writing about the big success of a childhood "transition" such as the Dr. John Money writing about David Reimer as the John/Joan case until Reimer's suicide.
EPATH and WPATH will never take ownership of this history. They will never recognize their contribution to the wreckage in families where a father of young children "transitioned," and indeed, they will blame the traumatized mothers, as the diagnosing "sexologist" did in my husband's case. My husband was hugely successful after the surgeries; the database management company he's an executive at promotes "trans ideology" through their "pronouns page," continuing the tradition of promotion and advertising. My ex-husband had all the surgeries, but he will never know what it is like to be a woman or what it feels like to have a woman's genital nerve endings, a woman's sensation of the milk letting down during breastfeeding, or what it is like to recover from 2 vaginal births. These are facts. To talk about facts is not part of a genocidal plot. The "genocide narrative" is classic narcissism on a grand scale.
May 5, 2023·edited May 5, 2023Liked by Lisa Selin Davis
EPATH "dismissed the 'attacks' (otherwise known as criticisms) as ideologically-driven pseudo-science."
1/ Yes, they did - and worse, the keynote speaker outright declared "we will not listen" to such criticism. Bummer...though, the (limited) changes Davis notes is a good sign, likely pointing to internecine tensions in EPATH.
2/ Clearly, much of the congressional criticism is "ideologically-driven" - a Republican culture war issue intended to get votes and distract attention from the Republican Party's destructive greater program.
Now that doesn't mean right wing criticisms aren't right; but it's either naive or disingenuous to overlook a/ how closely this 'classic' right wing culture war strategy is like previous attacks on groups' rights (gay marriage, women seeking abortions), and b/ the partisan motivation of this strategy.
3/ They're concerned about children? About the safety of women in bathrooms? Really? Let's talk about Republicans positions on guns - and how many kids have been killed in schools in the last year, and how many women have been gun murdered by spouses.
4/ The liberal watchword "complex" is seized on a lot in transgender discussions - including on this website. You wanna know what would be "complex"? "Complex" would be facing the dangers and harm of medicalized transition, and, at the same time, the clear and present menace of the Republican Party to the economic and political welfare of most Americans - including many Republicans.
Upshot: Focusing narrowly on trans medicine misses the big picture that issue is embedded in - it distracts both liberals and right wing citizens from identifying the menace of the organizational right; and distracts liberals from the Democrats' own refusals to support popular issues like medicare for all.
This, particularly, is an extremely good point, which is important to keep in mind when discussing these issues with others: “The liberal watchword "complex" is seized on a lot in transgender discussions - including on this website. You wanna know what would be "complex"? "Complex" would be facing the dangers and harm of medicalized transition, and, at the same time, the clear and present menace of the Republican Party to the economic and political welfare of most Americans - including many Republicans.”
Thank you, Lisa, for such a nuanced, thoughtful, and deeply felt report. I just don't know how anyone, once they go down the rabbit holes, can hold on to the idea that cutting off healthy body parts is a reasonable thing to do to anyone.
I point to a practitioner, John Brinkley, who made lots of money in the 1920s by implanting goat glands into impotent men as a cure. His patients gave "consent," they were desperate to fix a problem, and some claimed to be cured. He spread the word through his own radio station. Authorities had a hard time shutting him down, despite his lack of medical training, despite the harm he was committing, despite the obvious nature of the fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley
How is what Brinkley did to desperate people significantly different from what the "gender affirming" care practitioners are doing? And it was still so difficult to stop him *even though* he didn't have the support of medical and legal institutions. (He was almost elected governor!)
You are right. This is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible to stop. There’s a more recent example that shows beliefs like this persist even with lawsuits and scientific debunking: the recovered memories/satanic panic/ritual abuse scandals. Despite the decades old successful lawsuits and the documented harms of this pseudoscience (see first link), the belief in repressed memories is still held by the majority of mental health professionals and the general public (see second link).
It's different in that it is happening to children, and as you note, now the medical and legal institutions are cheering it on, the president of the US and the AMA, AAP, APA, etc. are all cheering it on.
Particularly after reflecting on the excellent Genspect detransitioner panel, I keep coming back to Lisa’s observation: “I have no evidence at my fingertips for this, but I don’t believe that most GNC kids are dysphoric.” If proper studies were done, I am sure this would be borne out.
As it is, though, the rampant pseudoscience around this subject continually takes my breath away. This is the opening para in a Psychology Today article: “Although various names have referred to it, the phenomenon of gender dysphoria has been well-studied for over a century. Gender dysphoria occurs when a person's biological sex doesn’t match their perceived gender identity. The scientific consensus is that this likely occurs due to anomalies in fetal development that lead persons to experience preferences for social roles and personal identity that are more typical of the opposite sex.”
The more I see of this junk science, the more I think “gender dysphoria” is not only a serious misnomer, but is also nothing more than a convenient label stuck on every child who has the least bit of difficulty with adolescence.
It’s infuriating. We have to find a way to fight back more effectively. The question is how. I know Lisa has been looking for a name to give a coalition to address this. Here’s a suggestion:
Coalition Against Medical Experiments On Children (CAMEOC)
And one more thing: the next time anyone responds to what I ever so carefully, with facts to support it, on these issues says, “yes, but do you know any transwomen?” I am really tempted to answer: “Yes. Do you know any detransitioners?” If not, as will surely be the case, I will point them to the Genspect video, and not entertain any further discussion until they have watched it.
Related to Lisa’s observation about GNC kids, here is a good quote from Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls:
"...as with historical 'treatments' of homosexuality, there is a suspicion that in treating misaligned gender identity as a disorder, medics are effectively pathologising sex-nonconfirming behavior because of residual underlying distaste or purience"
I want to make one correction to the above comment of mine. In the imagined exchange I describe at the end, I want to re-emphasize, in case it’s not clear, that my issue is not with trans people, but rather with friends who are NOT trans, but determinedly “liberal,” who use the question, “do you know any transwomen” to discredit a point of view that is at all critical of, eg, rampant adolescent transitioning without guardrails. There are many pathways to greater understanding and knowledge, and having a best friend who . . . is not always even a good one. Indeed, thanks to Lisa, I have come to “know” many trans people and have learned a whole lot from each.
Thank you--you have done so much! It's a huge battle but we are not alone--it is changing and it's in part due to you, to your listening, thinking, figuring stuff out and explaining it to us, and to everyone.
Lisa, I badly wanted to attend the Killarney conference, but now that I'm almost all the way through the remote-ticket videos, I am at peace with having been unable. I wonder which of these people asking brilliant questions might have been unable to attend I'd taken a spot.
I marvel at the work presented there and I read with admiration your skilled reporting about it all. As for the Pollyanna-versus-Downer effect, my needle swings right to left and back again maybe even more than yours. On both ends of the scale, though, i retain complete confidence that your writing is making a difference. Thank you.
Lisa: your writing is so clear, lucid, and empathetic. It is not surprising, actually, to come away from a conference so powerful as Genspect was, and then not fall into a low because there is so much that must happen, but is not happening at all near to the extent it needs to. Josie (who is now, directly, a paid subscriber, as we wanted to give you that at least that modicum of support), says she often feels this way after a really good education conference, from high to low, to back in the middle, wherever that is. But, to join in saying, as others have written here: YOU have made an enormous difference, and that you are just one person, to have such impact, is nothing short of remarkable. You have, for one, provided a place to which I can send everyone with whom I have a conversation trying to get them to recognize what is happening, confident that you are always and ever an honest broker and a great journalist dedicated to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
Yes, we still have a vertical climb, and no, we don’t have time, as people are being hurt every day, but you, Lisa have and are making an enormous contribution, every day. Respect.
Thanks, Lisa. Very informative. There is a lot of mental pathology here. I must admit as a conservative Christian, I am not so reassured when a gender dysphoric youth goes through transition and then detransitions and then decides that he/she is homosexual that we should be content. These are really confused individuals and I am not content with the idea that being gay becomes a smooth road to fulfillment. I attend a church that has opened its doors to gays without affirming that the practice of same-sex lifestyle is approved by God. Look, I am a sinner and believe that we all need a personal relationship with Jesus and beg forgiveness. Sanctification is a very individualized process by which each of God's children become more like him. Thanks for listening without necessarily judging.
While I'm a believer in free speech and welcome people of different perspectives here, this comment is, to me, exactly why I don't want to cede this issue to the right, and why I'm begging liberals to speak up and fight back. Homosexuality is a normal variation and appears everywhere, whatever they call it—men in Afghanistan have sex with each other, even if they don't say they're gay. "Straight" men have sex is fa'afafine. Homosexuality is not a sin. I have theist friends, and I can't relate to them but as long as they don't try to impose it on me, it's fine. Same with the belief in gender identity. Go right ahead, as long as you keep it in your own realm. I say the same to you with your belief that homosexuality is a decision or a lifestyle.
Here is the problem with your perspective on gay people being part of this conversation. The vast majority of Americans believe that gayness is not an abomination or wrong path. That same-sex loving people are people like everyone else and are not "sinners." But the majority of Americans also think that gender affirming care for young people is inappropriate. So when conservative Christian and Right Wing ideology gets conflated with a very reasonable position on gender affirming care, we lose. No reasonable person, unless they have a child who is being harmed by gender care, will side with the opposition to affirmative care if it also comes with nonsense like drag show bans, book bans, or demonizing gayness, or stopping abortion. In fact, even though gender ideology is harming my own flesh and blood, I look at the attack on abortion rights by the side active in stopping gender ideology and think, I cannot sacrifice abortion rights and protections for gays and lesbians for this.
Personally, my ability to have an abortion when I needed it was so central to my success in life and the well being of my children that I cannot chuck that even though I am nearing menopause. My overarching interest in securing the rights and success of women and girls, especially those in poverty, tells me that access to abortion is even more important. But everyone has a different calculus. As I said, for those of us personally invested in this issue, we may very well choose to vote with the side that is against broad access to affirming care. But most Americans aren't. So what they see is a side that is anti Abortion, anti gay, and anti trans people. In my opinion, if the fight against trans ideology is not decoupled from the right wing, chances of gaining traction is low.
Wish there were more like you on this website - I might find it less inimical. Though I don't enjoy sharing personal stuff on sites like this, I do want to respond directly once, since I am touched by your post, and can identify with one chunk of it, personally and politically (plus I likely won't subscribe here in future, so I have to talk now). Unfortunately, I am also in the situation of fearing for the health of a trans child - have held his then-teenage forehead in the darkest corner we could find of a parking lot while he threw up because the hormones he was then taking sickened him, plus the suffering of regular diarrhea. At the same time - as indicated in my other post on this thread - I see the right as a genuine human menace. And so, despite my anger and pain - unlike the Republicans on this substack, and unlike the right liberals who see little dif between their dissatisfied allegiance to the most right wing parts of the Democratic Party and Republicans, and unlike the 'single issue' gender critical folks, for whom this issue is the most important thing - I cannot support the clear and present danger of the Republican Party over this issue - only try to change liberal institutions. Best to you in your struggle.
S. bee and abramawicz: I am so grateful for your contributions here, which are both wise and empathetic. I am also one who will under no circumstances vote for Rs. To add to what you both list, I know full well, as a lesbian, that if Rs take control, in addition to all else, gay marriage and other protections for us will be on the chopping block. I understand and do not want to judge anyone, particularly any parent, in the thick of this, for their choices, but voting R is not a viable choice for me. Instead, what I feel I must do is work on the D side, both individually and where possible collectively, to wake people up, educate them as best I can, and also contact public officials to express my concerns whenever an opportunity arises. I do wish, with regard to that, there was a more concerted method for taking those actions. That needs to happen yesterday, for sure.
Abramawicz, to you, particularly, I want to say that, while it is absolutely NOT your job to educate anyone--your personal situation is enough to contend with--you have enlarged my understanding enormously, and I would be sorry to lose your informed and valuable voice here at BROADview.
"I understand and do not want to judge anyone, particularly any parent, in the thick of this, for their choices"
Um...as you might guess, I'm OK "judg[ing]...parent[s]" - if they are not simply ignorant, but are willfully ignorant of what voting Republican means in practical terms...or if they are right wing, and are - as with the anti-abortion right - claiming they are only 'protecting the innocent child' as a means of enacting a greater raft of laws - laws far beyond 'minority rights' - that are destructive to both child and adult life in the world.
Any liberal, any authentic devotee of any religion committed to peace on earth...anyone who's been the victim of crime - especially violent crime - will have to struggle with vengeful impulses that, in only slightly more intellectual form, become calls for harsher 'anticrime' laws that do not get to the roots of social violence.
Liberals and progressives are in a similar position when their child is the victim of the "complex" (as liberals like to say) transgender phenomenon - that is caused by far more (in ways I've tried to think out in previous posts) than trans activists.
abramawicz: Yes, it is ABSOLUTELY appropriate for you to judge. You have direct experience of the harms. And this is a take home for me: "if they are not simply ignorant, but are willfully ignorant of what voting Republican means in practical terms...or if they are right wing, and are - as with the anti-abortion right - claiming they are only 'protecting the innocent child' as a means of enacting a greater raft of laws - laws far beyond 'minority rights' - that are destructive to both child and adult life in the world."
I am grateful to you that you pushed back on this--particularly as you have far more important things to do. My hesitation came from not feeling I should judge those on the front line, as I am not, but what you are making clear here is that we cannot sit on the fence about this. We have to take a stand. I stand with you. and I will try and do a better job of it. Respect.
Thank you, Susan. I have hoped that my past posts on this site would speak to you and your pov. Dunno how empathetic I am, but Bee is almost preternaturally so - she's very specifically brought up mental health twice on this thread...with good reason each time, imo. Best.
I think I work hard to not expect perfection from anyone or anything because I don't want to be a campaign of one. I also try to respect the reasons why other people hold their own positions. The other piece of the cultural/political big picture that I try to hold is that internet culture, the place where we are frequently fighting this, only gives us slivers of things and for all the people who have strong views that I have a hard time with online, I believe in real life, we can have complicated discussions with. So I guess, I hope you try to hold all of this a little more lightly for your own sanity.
Since you are anonymous here and so am I... What were you doing in a car with a "trans child" in the darkest corner of a parking lot? Take that question how you like, think what you like of me, I don't give a toss, but it needed to be asked.
the child...oh...you mean my child? my son? guess i didn't clarify that, since i was talking to a poster who i knew was in the same situation w/their own trans "child"...anyway, in answer to yr question,, we went for the darkest spot of that nyc parking lot so he could throw up without being watched retching by the people on the street...in whatever spirit you asked it, good you did since it may have been unclear to those outside the conversation...(which i began by saying i didn't normally like to be public about...and here we have one reason why)
Fine. Glad I asked too. I don't trust people online, for good reason, don't trust a lot of people in person either, but still, what's so public about saying it was your son? No one knows you here. Anyway, good luck to him and you. I hope he's out of the clutches of trans ideology and "health care" by now. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't thank my lucky stars I didn't bring children into this world. And it frees my time up to be of help to "other people's children."
Thanks for saying this. I've come to the same conclusion. Never thought I would, but with much more effective birth control than was available in my youth, I have to put "choice" aside, and vote for my female sex.
I wish I could vote for any side at this point, but can't. Remember the side that seems to make sense on trans issues is also the side that supports gun rights to the Nth degree despite school shootings and other gun deaths that kill children. From CNN: "Nearly 3,600 children died in gun-related incidents that year [2021]. That’s about five children lost for every 100,000 children in the United States." Both sides lack souls and are in it mainly for power and money. Of course, not voting is a lame kind of statement too, unless you back it up with complaints to your reps, as their job is to represent us whether we vote or not. If we don't vote, at least we don't pay for their campaigns (not directly anyway) and they know that.
I saw a FOX poll on gun issues that showed the vast majority of their viewers want the same things ( background checks, etc.) that liberal voters want. Our country is so broken when the majority of us want something and no one we elect can make it happen.
And we already have all these gun laws and they are not even enforced!
This would be a really hard thing to quantify, but given that (1) almost every kid is getting gender indoctrination in school and on social media, (2) many parents "thank God" that their children are trans instead of gay (see Barnes's Time to Think), and (3) all good progressives, including our president, believe in medically affirming the professed gender identities of children, it's reasonable to guess that this issue affects more children than anything having to do with abortion. And of course children who have been sterilized by these treatments will never need abortions.
On top of which the matter was stupidly framed - since the question is not just 'kids vs kids' but 'harm done' - in this case, to women forced into childbirth or unsafe abortion or early poverty and hardship due to having a child, and to families forced into greater poverty by unwanted childbirth.
Thus, harm to women:
"The number of women who die giving birth in America each year has nearly doubled in the last two decades.
The United States is the only high-resource country with a consistently rising maternal mortality rate.
Black women are 3 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women in the U.S."
Now, how do you think Republican Party's long-sought abortion laws are going to affect those numbers? And how old do you think those women are? Restricting the matter to 'harm to kids,' how many would you guess are 'kids' themselves - minors?
But to restrict harm done to children - there's the obvious question you omit of the lives of children brought into the world whose parents are unprepared or unable to care for them, emotionally or financially.
Last: despite my disagreement, I do appreciate your making an effort at actual argument - versus the interlocutor you are standing in for, who lazily prefers mutual back scratching (there's a more vulgar term for that) to anything like - eeeeek, horrors - argument on a public policy issue, where the 'good' and 'harm' of political choices are responsibly weighed.
"Can you show me what sources you used in order to find my claim 'worthless'?"
I said unsupported claims are worthless. Any unsupported claim is worthless, in terms of argument and persuasion.
See, in normative arguments, versus ignorant bar talk settings- as I taught my students for 20 years - you support claims with evidence and authorities.
Otherwise - again, this is only the case outside settings where you can assume most people will agree with you - you won't be taken seriously, and certainly won't persuade anyone.
Just as people claiming transgender medicalization must support their claims with good evidence - which they can't - so people on any side in the argument should be prepared to support their claims.
You want to persuade readers? You want to give people who instinctively agree with you evidence they can use in other arguments? Then support your claim.
Clearly I am not aiming to persuade anyone else. This was not my intention and I would have written it differently if that was my aim.
My goal was/is conversation, hearing different perspectives, learning things from other people. I personally find it helpful, when engaging in conversation, to not cut people off with demands for proof of everything they say. That tends to end things quite quickly and ruins a good back and forth. It devolves into a fight of links.
If I were to start a campaign of trying to get citizens to vote on the single issue of trans stuff, I would, of course, have stats at the ready.
"These are really confused individuals and I am not content with the idea that being gay becomes a smooth road to fulfillment. I attend a church that has opened its doors to gays without affirming that the practice of same-sex lifestyle is approved by God." GBM: Who is God? What is a "same-sex" lifestyle?
What is painful to me about your belief in what God approves is that, in your church, you have gay, lesbian, and transgender children who you are directly and indirectly teaching self-hatred. Otherwise, I say, you keep to your business, and I keep to mine. I wish you could talk to my 99 year-old mother; the mother of two gay children and one gay grandchild. She loves and is devoted to Jesus. She wants us to be happy, and is glad that we have all the rights that her straight child has.
Diane Ehrensaft. That's how it happened at UCSF. She's all in 1000%. I think they were one of the leaders in the whole thing in the US. I love how Jamie Reed or Stella or Sasha said recently 'if you go to a gender clinic, you will see an endocrinologist at the first appt (yep!). An endocrinologist is there to modify hormones and only modify hormones. That is the only thing they do. There is no therapy happening in a gender clinic.'
Holy cow, you have to laugh at the chart on top of the story, in which **every** gender variation on the chart (real or imagined) gets some pretty/cool color pattern ... except "cisgender," which is oppressively gray. "Cis" people are so **boring**, so dull...
Lisa, you probably saw Helen Lewis' article in The Atlantic yesterday. I thought it was a giant step forward and I think you are partly responsible for bringing that piece into the light if only by the insistent, yet undogmatic way you've pursued this issue. Take a victory lap. You are making a difference. Your voice is important. You helped claim the middle ground by making it safe for people to come forward.
Second, third, and fourth this, David. Absolutely right.
Thank you for being there and for sorting through your reactions, and, most of all, for continuing to try to do something about this "situation," for want of a better word or in the attempt to sanitize what I could have called this absolutely fucking shit show. As a parent with a kid still mired in the horror, I just want to thank you.
When I've seen Kenneth Zucker describe a child he believes might be "true trans" he describes oddly sexed toys and activities, which demonstrate that "brain" something or other he, Blanchard, Cantor and Bailey continue to spout. Just as promoted decades ago by Harry Benjamin and "first well-known transsexual" Christine Jorgensen, it is hype for a profit-making industry. My ex-husband was bothered, he said, "occasionally" by a desire to be "not like my father" (who was physically violent, not socially appropriate, probably had OCD and/or was on the ASD spectrum) which as soon as a PhD psychologist was involved, turned into 'gender dysphoria." He'd heard of Jorgensen's book, Conundrum. There is a very strong thread in the history of the surgeries, of the early "transitioners," advertising, promoting through lecture tours, writing about the big success of a childhood "transition" such as the Dr. John Money writing about David Reimer as the John/Joan case until Reimer's suicide.
EPATH and WPATH will never take ownership of this history. They will never recognize their contribution to the wreckage in families where a father of young children "transitioned," and indeed, they will blame the traumatized mothers, as the diagnosing "sexologist" did in my husband's case. My husband was hugely successful after the surgeries; the database management company he's an executive at promotes "trans ideology" through their "pronouns page," continuing the tradition of promotion and advertising. My ex-husband had all the surgeries, but he will never know what it is like to be a woman or what it feels like to have a woman's genital nerve endings, a woman's sensation of the milk letting down during breastfeeding, or what it is like to recover from 2 vaginal births. These are facts. To talk about facts is not part of a genocidal plot. The "genocide narrative" is classic narcissism on a grand scale.
EPATH "dismissed the 'attacks' (otherwise known as criticisms) as ideologically-driven pseudo-science."
1/ Yes, they did - and worse, the keynote speaker outright declared "we will not listen" to such criticism. Bummer...though, the (limited) changes Davis notes is a good sign, likely pointing to internecine tensions in EPATH.
2/ Clearly, much of the congressional criticism is "ideologically-driven" - a Republican culture war issue intended to get votes and distract attention from the Republican Party's destructive greater program.
Now that doesn't mean right wing criticisms aren't right; but it's either naive or disingenuous to overlook a/ how closely this 'classic' right wing culture war strategy is like previous attacks on groups' rights (gay marriage, women seeking abortions), and b/ the partisan motivation of this strategy.
3/ They're concerned about children? About the safety of women in bathrooms? Really? Let's talk about Republicans positions on guns - and how many kids have been killed in schools in the last year, and how many women have been gun murdered by spouses.
4/ The liberal watchword "complex" is seized on a lot in transgender discussions - including on this website. You wanna know what would be "complex"? "Complex" would be facing the dangers and harm of medicalized transition, and, at the same time, the clear and present menace of the Republican Party to the economic and political welfare of most Americans - including many Republicans.
Upshot: Focusing narrowly on trans medicine misses the big picture that issue is embedded in - it distracts both liberals and right wing citizens from identifying the menace of the organizational right; and distracts liberals from the Democrats' own refusals to support popular issues like medicare for all.
This, particularly, is an extremely good point, which is important to keep in mind when discussing these issues with others: “The liberal watchword "complex" is seized on a lot in transgender discussions - including on this website. You wanna know what would be "complex"? "Complex" would be facing the dangers and harm of medicalized transition, and, at the same time, the clear and present menace of the Republican Party to the economic and political welfare of most Americans - including many Republicans.”
Thank you, Lisa, for such a nuanced, thoughtful, and deeply felt report. I just don't know how anyone, once they go down the rabbit holes, can hold on to the idea that cutting off healthy body parts is a reasonable thing to do to anyone.
I point to a practitioner, John Brinkley, who made lots of money in the 1920s by implanting goat glands into impotent men as a cure. His patients gave "consent," they were desperate to fix a problem, and some claimed to be cured. He spread the word through his own radio station. Authorities had a hard time shutting him down, despite his lack of medical training, despite the harm he was committing, despite the obvious nature of the fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_R._Brinkley
How is what Brinkley did to desperate people significantly different from what the "gender affirming" care practitioners are doing? And it was still so difficult to stop him *even though* he didn't have the support of medical and legal institutions. (He was almost elected governor!)
It's going to be a long road, I'm afraid.
You are right. This is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible to stop. There’s a more recent example that shows beliefs like this persist even with lawsuits and scientific debunking: the recovered memories/satanic panic/ritual abuse scandals. Despite the decades old successful lawsuits and the documented harms of this pseudoscience (see first link), the belief in repressed memories is still held by the majority of mental health professionals and the general public (see second link).
https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/June-1998/Dangerous-Therapy-The-Story-of-Patricia-Burgus-and-Multiple-Personality-Disorder/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6826861/
It's different in that it is happening to children, and as you note, now the medical and legal institutions are cheering it on, the president of the US and the AMA, AAP, APA, etc. are all cheering it on.
Both are horrible medical failures.
Particularly after reflecting on the excellent Genspect detransitioner panel, I keep coming back to Lisa’s observation: “I have no evidence at my fingertips for this, but I don’t believe that most GNC kids are dysphoric.” If proper studies were done, I am sure this would be borne out.
As it is, though, the rampant pseudoscience around this subject continually takes my breath away. This is the opening para in a Psychology Today article: “Although various names have referred to it, the phenomenon of gender dysphoria has been well-studied for over a century. Gender dysphoria occurs when a person's biological sex doesn’t match their perceived gender identity. The scientific consensus is that this likely occurs due to anomalies in fetal development that lead persons to experience preferences for social roles and personal identity that are more typical of the opposite sex.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/talking-apes/202304/what-is-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria
The more I see of this junk science, the more I think “gender dysphoria” is not only a serious misnomer, but is also nothing more than a convenient label stuck on every child who has the least bit of difficulty with adolescence.
It’s infuriating. We have to find a way to fight back more effectively. The question is how. I know Lisa has been looking for a name to give a coalition to address this. Here’s a suggestion:
Coalition Against Medical Experiments On Children (CAMEOC)
And one more thing: the next time anyone responds to what I ever so carefully, with facts to support it, on these issues says, “yes, but do you know any transwomen?” I am really tempted to answer: “Yes. Do you know any detransitioners?” If not, as will surely be the case, I will point them to the Genspect video, and not entertain any further discussion until they have watched it.
Related to Lisa’s observation about GNC kids, here is a good quote from Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls:
"...as with historical 'treatments' of homosexuality, there is a suspicion that in treating misaligned gender identity as a disorder, medics are effectively pathologising sex-nonconfirming behavior because of residual underlying distaste or purience"
I want to make one correction to the above comment of mine. In the imagined exchange I describe at the end, I want to re-emphasize, in case it’s not clear, that my issue is not with trans people, but rather with friends who are NOT trans, but determinedly “liberal,” who use the question, “do you know any transwomen” to discredit a point of view that is at all critical of, eg, rampant adolescent transitioning without guardrails. There are many pathways to greater understanding and knowledge, and having a best friend who . . . is not always even a good one. Indeed, thanks to Lisa, I have come to “know” many trans people and have learned a whole lot from each.
I just really don’t understand how rapidly institutions got captured by this ideology Someone could fight a book about it.
That’s exactly what I want to do.
Please write this book!
Yes please!
In case you haven't seen it, this is a key reveal by a UK journalist asking how we got here:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists/
Lisa, I hear your dejection and maybe your are facing an emotional crisis. Going further into the light is not easy. Please take care of yourself.
Thank you--you have done so much! It's a huge battle but we are not alone--it is changing and it's in part due to you, to your listening, thinking, figuring stuff out and explaining it to us, and to everyone.
Lisa, I badly wanted to attend the Killarney conference, but now that I'm almost all the way through the remote-ticket videos, I am at peace with having been unable. I wonder which of these people asking brilliant questions might have been unable to attend I'd taken a spot.
I marvel at the work presented there and I read with admiration your skilled reporting about it all. As for the Pollyanna-versus-Downer effect, my needle swings right to left and back again maybe even more than yours. On both ends of the scale, though, i retain complete confidence that your writing is making a difference. Thank you.
Lisa: your writing is so clear, lucid, and empathetic. It is not surprising, actually, to come away from a conference so powerful as Genspect was, and then not fall into a low because there is so much that must happen, but is not happening at all near to the extent it needs to. Josie (who is now, directly, a paid subscriber, as we wanted to give you that at least that modicum of support), says she often feels this way after a really good education conference, from high to low, to back in the middle, wherever that is. But, to join in saying, as others have written here: YOU have made an enormous difference, and that you are just one person, to have such impact, is nothing short of remarkable. You have, for one, provided a place to which I can send everyone with whom I have a conversation trying to get them to recognize what is happening, confident that you are always and ever an honest broker and a great journalist dedicated to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
Yes, we still have a vertical climb, and no, we don’t have time, as people are being hurt every day, but you, Lisa have and are making an enormous contribution, every day. Respect.
Thanks, Lisa. Very informative. There is a lot of mental pathology here. I must admit as a conservative Christian, I am not so reassured when a gender dysphoric youth goes through transition and then detransitions and then decides that he/she is homosexual that we should be content. These are really confused individuals and I am not content with the idea that being gay becomes a smooth road to fulfillment. I attend a church that has opened its doors to gays without affirming that the practice of same-sex lifestyle is approved by God. Look, I am a sinner and believe that we all need a personal relationship with Jesus and beg forgiveness. Sanctification is a very individualized process by which each of God's children become more like him. Thanks for listening without necessarily judging.
While I'm a believer in free speech and welcome people of different perspectives here, this comment is, to me, exactly why I don't want to cede this issue to the right, and why I'm begging liberals to speak up and fight back. Homosexuality is a normal variation and appears everywhere, whatever they call it—men in Afghanistan have sex with each other, even if they don't say they're gay. "Straight" men have sex is fa'afafine. Homosexuality is not a sin. I have theist friends, and I can't relate to them but as long as they don't try to impose it on me, it's fine. Same with the belief in gender identity. Go right ahead, as long as you keep it in your own realm. I say the same to you with your belief that homosexuality is a decision or a lifestyle.
Thank you, Lisa. Well said.
Here is the problem with your perspective on gay people being part of this conversation. The vast majority of Americans believe that gayness is not an abomination or wrong path. That same-sex loving people are people like everyone else and are not "sinners." But the majority of Americans also think that gender affirming care for young people is inappropriate. So when conservative Christian and Right Wing ideology gets conflated with a very reasonable position on gender affirming care, we lose. No reasonable person, unless they have a child who is being harmed by gender care, will side with the opposition to affirmative care if it also comes with nonsense like drag show bans, book bans, or demonizing gayness, or stopping abortion. In fact, even though gender ideology is harming my own flesh and blood, I look at the attack on abortion rights by the side active in stopping gender ideology and think, I cannot sacrifice abortion rights and protections for gays and lesbians for this.
Personally, my ability to have an abortion when I needed it was so central to my success in life and the well being of my children that I cannot chuck that even though I am nearing menopause. My overarching interest in securing the rights and success of women and girls, especially those in poverty, tells me that access to abortion is even more important. But everyone has a different calculus. As I said, for those of us personally invested in this issue, we may very well choose to vote with the side that is against broad access to affirming care. But most Americans aren't. So what they see is a side that is anti Abortion, anti gay, and anti trans people. In my opinion, if the fight against trans ideology is not decoupled from the right wing, chances of gaining traction is low.
Wish there were more like you on this website - I might find it less inimical. Though I don't enjoy sharing personal stuff on sites like this, I do want to respond directly once, since I am touched by your post, and can identify with one chunk of it, personally and politically (plus I likely won't subscribe here in future, so I have to talk now). Unfortunately, I am also in the situation of fearing for the health of a trans child - have held his then-teenage forehead in the darkest corner we could find of a parking lot while he threw up because the hormones he was then taking sickened him, plus the suffering of regular diarrhea. At the same time - as indicated in my other post on this thread - I see the right as a genuine human menace. And so, despite my anger and pain - unlike the Republicans on this substack, and unlike the right liberals who see little dif between their dissatisfied allegiance to the most right wing parts of the Democratic Party and Republicans, and unlike the 'single issue' gender critical folks, for whom this issue is the most important thing - I cannot support the clear and present danger of the Republican Party over this issue - only try to change liberal institutions. Best to you in your struggle.
S. bee and abramawicz: I am so grateful for your contributions here, which are both wise and empathetic. I am also one who will under no circumstances vote for Rs. To add to what you both list, I know full well, as a lesbian, that if Rs take control, in addition to all else, gay marriage and other protections for us will be on the chopping block. I understand and do not want to judge anyone, particularly any parent, in the thick of this, for their choices, but voting R is not a viable choice for me. Instead, what I feel I must do is work on the D side, both individually and where possible collectively, to wake people up, educate them as best I can, and also contact public officials to express my concerns whenever an opportunity arises. I do wish, with regard to that, there was a more concerted method for taking those actions. That needs to happen yesterday, for sure.
Abramawicz, to you, particularly, I want to say that, while it is absolutely NOT your job to educate anyone--your personal situation is enough to contend with--you have enlarged my understanding enormously, and I would be sorry to lose your informed and valuable voice here at BROADview.
"I understand and do not want to judge anyone, particularly any parent, in the thick of this, for their choices"
Um...as you might guess, I'm OK "judg[ing]...parent[s]" - if they are not simply ignorant, but are willfully ignorant of what voting Republican means in practical terms...or if they are right wing, and are - as with the anti-abortion right - claiming they are only 'protecting the innocent child' as a means of enacting a greater raft of laws - laws far beyond 'minority rights' - that are destructive to both child and adult life in the world.
Any liberal, any authentic devotee of any religion committed to peace on earth...anyone who's been the victim of crime - especially violent crime - will have to struggle with vengeful impulses that, in only slightly more intellectual form, become calls for harsher 'anticrime' laws that do not get to the roots of social violence.
Liberals and progressives are in a similar position when their child is the victim of the "complex" (as liberals like to say) transgender phenomenon - that is caused by far more (in ways I've tried to think out in previous posts) than trans activists.
abramawicz: Yes, it is ABSOLUTELY appropriate for you to judge. You have direct experience of the harms. And this is a take home for me: "if they are not simply ignorant, but are willfully ignorant of what voting Republican means in practical terms...or if they are right wing, and are - as with the anti-abortion right - claiming they are only 'protecting the innocent child' as a means of enacting a greater raft of laws - laws far beyond 'minority rights' - that are destructive to both child and adult life in the world."
I am grateful to you that you pushed back on this--particularly as you have far more important things to do. My hesitation came from not feeling I should judge those on the front line, as I am not, but what you are making clear here is that we cannot sit on the fence about this. We have to take a stand. I stand with you. and I will try and do a better job of it. Respect.
Thank you, Susan. I have hoped that my past posts on this site would speak to you and your pov. Dunno how empathetic I am, but Bee is almost preternaturally so - she's very specifically brought up mental health twice on this thread...with good reason each time, imo. Best.
I think I work hard to not expect perfection from anyone or anything because I don't want to be a campaign of one. I also try to respect the reasons why other people hold their own positions. The other piece of the cultural/political big picture that I try to hold is that internet culture, the place where we are frequently fighting this, only gives us slivers of things and for all the people who have strong views that I have a hard time with online, I believe in real life, we can have complicated discussions with. So I guess, I hope you try to hold all of this a little more lightly for your own sanity.
Yes it’s a terrible conundrum.
Since you are anonymous here and so am I... What were you doing in a car with a "trans child" in the darkest corner of a parking lot? Take that question how you like, think what you like of me, I don't give a toss, but it needed to be asked.
the child...oh...you mean my child? my son? guess i didn't clarify that, since i was talking to a poster who i knew was in the same situation w/their own trans "child"...anyway, in answer to yr question,, we went for the darkest spot of that nyc parking lot so he could throw up without being watched retching by the people on the street...in whatever spirit you asked it, good you did since it may have been unclear to those outside the conversation...(which i began by saying i didn't normally like to be public about...and here we have one reason why)
Fine. Glad I asked too. I don't trust people online, for good reason, don't trust a lot of people in person either, but still, what's so public about saying it was your son? No one knows you here. Anyway, good luck to him and you. I hope he's out of the clutches of trans ideology and "health care" by now. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't thank my lucky stars I didn't bring children into this world. And it frees my time up to be of help to "other people's children."
I am pro choice, but I will be voting for the side that makes sense on the trans issue.
I think more kids are being hurt by this ideology than are hurt by abortion restrictions.
Thanks for saying this. I've come to the same conclusion. Never thought I would, but with much more effective birth control than was available in my youth, I have to put "choice" aside, and vote for my female sex.
I wish I could vote for any side at this point, but can't. Remember the side that seems to make sense on trans issues is also the side that supports gun rights to the Nth degree despite school shootings and other gun deaths that kill children. From CNN: "Nearly 3,600 children died in gun-related incidents that year [2021]. That’s about five children lost for every 100,000 children in the United States." Both sides lack souls and are in it mainly for power and money. Of course, not voting is a lame kind of statement too, unless you back it up with complaints to your reps, as their job is to represent us whether we vote or not. If we don't vote, at least we don't pay for their campaigns (not directly anyway) and they know that.
I saw a FOX poll on gun issues that showed the vast majority of their viewers want the same things ( background checks, etc.) that liberal voters want. Our country is so broken when the majority of us want something and no one we elect can make it happen.
And we already have all these gun laws and they are not even enforced!
It's all very depressing.
"I think more kids are being hurt by this ideology than are hurt by abortion restrictions."
"I think" you should support an otherwise worthless claim.
This would be a really hard thing to quantify, but given that (1) almost every kid is getting gender indoctrination in school and on social media, (2) many parents "thank God" that their children are trans instead of gay (see Barnes's Time to Think), and (3) all good progressives, including our president, believe in medically affirming the professed gender identities of children, it's reasonable to guess that this issue affects more children than anything having to do with abortion. And of course children who have been sterilized by these treatments will never need abortions.
"This would be a really hard thing to quantify"
On top of which the matter was stupidly framed - since the question is not just 'kids vs kids' but 'harm done' - in this case, to women forced into childbirth or unsafe abortion or early poverty and hardship due to having a child, and to families forced into greater poverty by unwanted childbirth.
Thus, harm to women:
"The number of women who die giving birth in America each year has nearly doubled in the last two decades.
The United States is the only high-resource country with a consistently rising maternal mortality rate.
Black women are 3 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women in the U.S."
https://everymothercounts.org/giving-birth-in-america/
Now, how do you think Republican Party's long-sought abortion laws are going to affect those numbers? And how old do you think those women are? Restricting the matter to 'harm to kids,' how many would you guess are 'kids' themselves - minors?
But to restrict harm done to children - there's the obvious question you omit of the lives of children brought into the world whose parents are unprepared or unable to care for them, emotionally or financially.
Last: despite my disagreement, I do appreciate your making an effort at actual argument - versus the interlocutor you are standing in for, who lazily prefers mutual back scratching (there's a more vulgar term for that) to anything like - eeeeek, horrors - argument on a public policy issue, where the 'good' and 'harm' of political choices are responsibly weighed.
I'm so glad to find someone who actually knows the numbers on this!
Can you show me what sources you used in order to find my claim "worthless"?
"Can you show me what sources you used in order to find my claim 'worthless'?"
I said unsupported claims are worthless. Any unsupported claim is worthless, in terms of argument and persuasion.
See, in normative arguments, versus ignorant bar talk settings- as I taught my students for 20 years - you support claims with evidence and authorities.
Otherwise - again, this is only the case outside settings where you can assume most people will agree with you - you won't be taken seriously, and certainly won't persuade anyone.
Just as people claiming transgender medicalization must support their claims with good evidence - which they can't - so people on any side in the argument should be prepared to support their claims.
You want to persuade readers? You want to give people who instinctively agree with you evidence they can use in other arguments? Then support your claim.
Clearly I am not aiming to persuade anyone else. This was not my intention and I would have written it differently if that was my aim.
My goal was/is conversation, hearing different perspectives, learning things from other people. I personally find it helpful, when engaging in conversation, to not cut people off with demands for proof of everything they say. That tends to end things quite quickly and ruins a good back and forth. It devolves into a fight of links.
If I were to start a campaign of trying to get citizens to vote on the single issue of trans stuff, I would, of course, have stats at the ready.
But, again, not at all the purpose of my comment.
Between the two of them things would really be covered.
I truly believe that gay people are born that way.
And that they deserve to have a fulfilling love life just as much as the rest of us.
"These are really confused individuals and I am not content with the idea that being gay becomes a smooth road to fulfillment. I attend a church that has opened its doors to gays without affirming that the practice of same-sex lifestyle is approved by God." GBM: Who is God? What is a "same-sex" lifestyle?
What is painful to me about your belief in what God approves is that, in your church, you have gay, lesbian, and transgender children who you are directly and indirectly teaching self-hatred. Otherwise, I say, you keep to your business, and I keep to mine. I wish you could talk to my 99 year-old mother; the mother of two gay children and one gay grandchild. She loves and is devoted to Jesus. She wants us to be happy, and is glad that we have all the rights that her straight child has.
Omg. You’re not kidding! That’s insane!
Diane Ehrensaft. That's how it happened at UCSF. She's all in 1000%. I think they were one of the leaders in the whole thing in the US. I love how Jamie Reed or Stella or Sasha said recently 'if you go to a gender clinic, you will see an endocrinologist at the first appt (yep!). An endocrinologist is there to modify hormones and only modify hormones. That is the only thing they do. There is no therapy happening in a gender clinic.'
FYI: extremely good article from Hadley Freeman in the London Times: https://archive.is/2023.05.07-003409/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bde6beee-ec3b-11ed-bf13-ef78badfc41f?shareToken=a65c0e4af9d3366dfe4d98dbcbb8e753
Holy cow, you have to laugh at the chart on top of the story, in which **every** gender variation on the chart (real or imagined) gets some pretty/cool color pattern ... except "cisgender," which is oppressively gray. "Cis" people are so **boring**, so dull...
Ridiculous.