Dear Liberal Journalist
A letter to a columnist from the illustrious Dr. Carol Tavris
Dear XXX,
I am an enormous admirer of your writing and just about always share the perspective (and passion) you bring to political reporting. I’m a social psychologist, and have written op-eds for the Times for many years, many of them in the era of the great Bob Berger. I’m co-author of Mistakes were made (but not by ME), on the dissonance we all feel when a deeply held belief or practice is disconfirmed by the evidence. The left experiences this just as the right does.
That’s why I writing to you, in hopes of instilling some dissonance in you about “gender-affirming” clinics. The left has a clear narrative about them—they are only good, only “2% of the adolescents later desist” (a number you reported in one of your essays), they save lives, etc.—and thus we open-minded people must fight tooth and nail against those loathsome, bigoted, transphobic Republicans who want to shut them down. I agree about the Republican motives, but not about the goal, which is why I’m hoping progressives like you will consider the evidence to date. It’s a hell of a story, but one that has been largely invisible in liberal media. Now, with the closing of the prestigious Tavistock Gender Clinic in London, the major revamping of “gender-affirming” interventions in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and elsewhere recommending against puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for young teenagers, and the rise of thousands upon thousands of desisters, it’s time for our side to understand what is happening without assuming it’s all a right-wing backlash. The Tavistock clinic is facing a lawsuit from 1,000 desisters protesting the treatments they received and the harms they suffered as a result.
I am taking the liberty of attaching an essay I just wrote for Skeptic, on the Tavistock story and its larger context. (I am also sending this email without the attachment, as a Times editor told me in the past that sometimes messages with attachments are deleted.) Below, I also include a message from Lisa Selin Davis, a journalist who has been writing often about problems getting the Left to hear the full story. I would be happy to give you more information or introduce you to experts who are on the forefront of these issues. Or send you another piece I’ve written, “We didn’t know there was another side.” There is.
With my best regards,
Carol Tavris, Ph.D.