Folks, remember that this never got edited. Had it been accepted, an editor and I would have pored over the language and could have refined etc. So I welcome edits, but with a caveat: if you'd like to change my suggested answers to that question, or some individual phrase, do so with mainstream media publications in mind. I am keen to hear how you think elected Democrats or those in the party machine should answer that question out there in the real world as it is. In fact, it would be great to do a post just with people's responses to this—the serious ones, that reflect the moment we're in. Have at it!
quibble, but you know, that heel achilles' achilles' heel never got healed. in fact he took an arrow in it and died or something.
and also, it's not an achilles' heel if you weren't winning before they got you there...an achilles' heel is a weak spot on a winner, not a weak spot on someone already weaker. there isn't really a special name for that that i can think of...because...why would there be.
stop expecting these people to change. they bought it hook, line, and sinker, and dug an enormous hole with it. (triicky but they managed.) any step back now would be an admission not merely of an honest mistake but rather of a stupid mistake, a mistake which shows them out to be careless, thoughtless, and just dumb. it would also mean admitting that they spent ten years in denial despite there being at least some voices explaining the problems as best they were allowed to. and another reason they're not going to admit it is because they're careless, thoughtless, and just dumb. so there, pretty much....
also, stop expecting the new york times to publish anything of this nature. also, stop caring whether the new york times publishes something. it's lost all meaning. YOU are the one with authority, trust, and reliability now. what YOU publish matters. i'll be your editor if you want, i'm pretty quick at it.
Well, that's true, too. Not a great title. One option was: "Democrats Need to Answer This Simple Question if They Want to Win." Or something like that.
i think mine would be, "we need new democrats if we want democrats to win." they've had enough chances, and one would be a fool to trust them on the subject at this point, whatever their mouths say. distrust of a person rarely remains confined to one particular area, but rather touches their whole character, and so...one would be a fool to trust them on anything. we would be fools to trust them again ourselves, and if we expect a few words to win back the belabored, splintered and then shattered trust of others, we must think those people fools too.
we must, absolutely must, look to people who *at the very least* have not yet had the chance to make fools of themselves in this regard -- if we were to restrict ourselves to people who have actively proven their integrity and intelligence through the whole affair, it would be you, me, jk rowling, jesse singal, and not that many more. while i think we together could form a more capable cabinet than the *current* one, that's not a high bar, and we need a lot more people than that.
this is why my eye twitches every time people mention newsom. he is an invertebrate who says whatever fits the setting, and he will faceplant before a national audience if a question of this nature is asked. so he's hopeless, even leaving aside the to-me-disqualifying fact that he was fine with it for a decade and signed off on a number of farcical things as governor of california.
i decided several months ago to put shawn fain on my personal presidential ticket, there being no one else in view without disqualifications of the nature of newsom's -- i have no idea what shawn fain thinks on the subject, which is better than 99.99% of elected democrats. shawn fain is not technically an elected democrat, but he won the uaw leadership election a few years ago, which has a votership of 400,000 -- so it's almost twice the size of most congressional districts, and moreover it's composed pretty much entirely of the kind of person democrats desperately want to win back. as far as black marks on his record, he was a little rude once and there are some corruption allegations. so -- in modern teams, clean as a squeaky fiddle.
he's not *running*, of course, yet -- but neither was eisenhower, until people cheered him into it. so -- we want shawn! we want shawn! we want shawn!
I agree that Verma would have appeared much more credible if she had answered Hawley’s question as Lisa Selin Davis very reasonably suggests. The reason why Verma didn’t is that she refuses to challenge the project of replacing sex (a material fact) with gender identity (a non-falsifiable metaphysical belief) everywhere and always. This project casts any reference to, or acknowledgment of, our sexed reality as offensive and hateful towards those people who want to deny it. Notice the intellectual sleight of hand in that last claim: rejecting the IDEA that gender identity should replace sex is equated with hating PEOPLE. Their acceptance of the faulty equation of ideas with people keeps Democratic politicians in a stranglehold, makes them look utterly stupid, and gives Republican politicians an unearned opportunity to look like the only reasonable people in the room.
sounds edgy but would YOU go along with all this stuff for a second? no. theyve gone along with it for 10 years. stupid, coward, sick -- take your pick, but it's one of em.
"rejecting the IDEA that gender identity should replace sex is equated with hating PEOPLE" Perfectly stated. That's definitely a core problem in these discussions.
Exactly. My thinking currently is we have to “flip the script” when speaking or writing about this—to get and keep the emphasis on women and girls and & keep even the word “trans” out of it altogether. In her testimony in Delaware (posted today) Nancy Hogshead does a superlative job of this. See what you think: https://substack.com/inbox/post/186995789 (I recommend watching it, as well as reading the excerpts.)
I still object to the term “gender-affirming care” and refuse to use it. It is a grotesque euphemism for the physical and psychological mutilation of children. There is no “gender” and there sure as hell is no “care”.
If we continue to cede this ground, then saying that we oppose it for any reason makes us look like we oppose healthcare, when obviously nothing could be further from the truth.
The pro-trans crowd has accomplished the most successful propaganda campaign in my lifetime. I refuse to assist them in it.
The fact remains that most people (reasonably) conflate the terms sex and gender; after all, if gender actually exists, why would there ever need to be a surgical or medical alteration of a sexed body?
Why can’t a “masculine” gender identity exist in an unmodified, female body?
The notion of “gender” was created because human beings cannot actually change sex.
But I have been consistently frustrated by the wholesale acceptance of “gender” AND the notion that “gender” transforms by medically or surgically altering a sexed body.
Not at all faulting you, Lisa, but there needs to be consistent challenges to these notions.
No one had a “gender identity” when I was growing up in the 80s.
I agree. I'm moving toward ‘organised medical fraud’ and ‘sex-rejecting interventions’. I find it hard even to use medical words like ‘surgery’ and ‘mastectomy’ for what they do to fellow human beings. The procedures and words they use have been hijacked from mainstream medical practice. “Gender affirming care” - all of it - should be located outside of/rejected by mainstream medicine (where law should take its course). The medical profession should stand up and remove the practice licences of all doctors who use their training and expertise to administer any kind of “gender affirming care” to fellow humans, and especially to children. As a paediatrician, I will NEVER follow WPATH ‘guidelines’, nor the copycat ‘guidelines’ that have sprung up all over the world. And I will resist, to the best of my ability, using any words or language that obfuscate what stand for, and what they do.
I agree, Mark Patrick, and I worry that jargon, of whatever kind, is a turn-off. The more jargon-y and painfully academic/hair-splitting a term sounds, the more suspect it is, at least to me.
I understand that in this discussion people are trying to find terms that will be acceptable to mainstream liberals (so-called anyway) who are all aboard the trans train and to the mainstream press; and I understand that that's a tall order and that many of us will disagree with each other.
I just can't get on board with what I see as Orwellian turns of phrase. I think they're incredibly dangerous and have helped push us to the point where society is now. "Gender-affirming care" is not a neutral term. It is a biased term, and it was deliberately chosen to obscure reality and to sound benign.
"Sex-rejecting interventions" sounds accurate to me. (I bet it does to Paul McHugh as well.) But I think we're in the minority.
Lisa: considering that this is an accepted term in MSM (vague as it is), what would you reasonably replace it with in an op-ed for the NYT or the like? I'm turning these critiques into an interesting exercise to see how we can all craft messaging for those outside our echo chambers.
I thought "pediatric sex-trait modification" (HHS report) is a factual way to put it. The fact that this will not be seen as a neutral, dispassionate term by the NYTimes just shows that they insist on "affirmative" language, i.e. language that implies a positive value judgment. The fact that they see neutral, factual descriptions as offensive and "invalidating" proves how much this entire project depends on social affirmation because it lacks a foundation in reality.
Yes, pediatric sex trait modification is both descriptive and neutral.
As for NYT, if a letter writer professes to being liberal/Democrat and against gender woo-woo, the letter will not be published.
NYT is allowing a little nuance, a few regrets, but overall the "paper of record " will never allow doubts about gender identity. Identity is sacrosanct.
that paper has burnt al repute and relevance. i am tired of seeing or hearing about it. what we have here in this comment section is a whole bundle of people who recognize they shouldn't trust the things they used to trust but who don't know what else to do with themselves. i suggest books from before 1900 and also my highly intelligent podcast-cum-radio-show which should be all the evidence you need that I am the new paper of record. write it on my skin if you want it to count.
I understand, and maybe that's a good alternative. It still sounds too benign to me.
"Modification" -- as if it's like trying a new brand of mascara or changing a hairstyle. Cutting off healthy breasts or the butchering of male body parts to pretend to create female ones is way more than "modification."
But as I say, if that's what it takes to get our foot in the door, to get the clueless to wake up, then that's what it takes.
Just take a single step backwards on the euphemism treadmill and call it “sex-reassignment surgery/medicine”. It’s slightly less honest, in that you can’t actually change sex (while I suppose you can “affirm” a gender identity). The upside is that it nips in the bud absurdities like “hair transplants are gender affirming care” and “if you allow males to get breast reductions for gynecomastia you must allow females to get elective mastectomies to look more male”.
Being just the last step on the euphemism treadmill, you could maybe sneak it in without getting flagged - it’s not obviously rhetorically loaded, and it would probably come off to the editors as more old-fashioned than subversive.
So-called "gender-affirming" is ALSO the same as "gender-denying", "gender-divisive", "gender-destructive", "gender-altering", "gender-mutilating", "gender-negating", "gender-averse", etc.,etc.,..... An OPINION is still just an opinion, however much alphabet soup follows a persons name....
"In reporting on this issue for the better part of the last five years, my north star has always been a quote from the artist Nina Paley: 'Sex is real. People are weird.' We can support people who want to change their appearance to look like the opposite, or neither, sex, who have a sense of themselves at odds with their bodies, while upholding that sex is real and that it matters in law and policy and everyday life."
I love that Nina Paley quote, too. I am also on board with supporting people "who want to change their appearance to look like the opposite, or neither, sex". What I am not fine with at this point of the evolution of my own views on this (and this complicates this quest for a "middle ground") is defining "support" as my own participation (or shall I say collusion) in the reality-denying fictional identity. That is, the demand that I use the "preferred" pronouns and pretend the person I'm interacting with is actually the opposite sex, even in contexts where it superficially doesn't seem to matter. Being allowed to describe reality accurately matters to me, as does permission not to support what I think is an unhealthy denial of reality, without being labeled narrow-minded or a bigot. I fully support anyone's right to style and express themselves however they want, but not their right to force others to pretend they are something they are not.
I think this is probably a position the majority of society intuitively shares. Yet I'm afraid it will be nearly impossible to get Democrats (and what Ruy Teixereira calls the "Brahmin left" more broadly) to heal their Achilles heal to this degree, until they too realize that "trans" is not an innate condition but always a coping mechanism for other issues. As long as they operate on the assumption that some people really "are trans", they will always think that "good people" must accept them as the opposite sex, even if they allow for carve-outs of areas where doing so leads to blatant unfairness like sports. Even if they are eventually forced to yield on that issue and the protection of children from what they may come to view as too risky but not fundamentally misguided medical interventions, they still haven't fully recovered, and allowed society to recover, from the activist-driven project to pretend that sex is an "identity" not a reality. What I think ultimately needs to happen is the realization that construing the categories of men and women as as "identities" rather than realities is just reinforcing regressive stereotypes, and I'm afraid we are still a long way from that.
a favorite trick of the castrationist cult is to cast anyone speaking up for health or human dignity and wholeness as a "traditionalist." the purpose of my show kandybarre, which i'll have all of you know i could take to whatever stage needed, real or virtual, is to show that I, a guy, can act whatever way i damn well please, without needing consistency, definition, pills, or the opinion of any headshrinker as to what i find worth doing and fun.
it's a shame that charlie kirk had his head blown off because i would have loved to debate the mf in drag, which the kids in MY day used to call "trapping," as in IT'S A TRAP!
and it would be a trap because -- bold claim -- i could make him or absolutely any of these people look like complete morons if given five minutes. yet -- because they all know that -- they won't give me five minutes. will you?
<<She could have said, “By your definition, based on sex, no. But by mine, based on identity—yes.”>>
Absolutely, but this observation tells us something about gender ideologues; namely, they really do believe. They're not kidding when they say that everyone has a gender identity, which is all that defines sex. They mean it--all of it. Sure, there are politicians who are just saying what they feel they have to say, but Chase Strangio and Erin Reed and and Alejandra Carabello are true believers. They'll fight this war to the bitter end and then some.
If Verma is one of that ilk, then she could have said nothing other than what she *did* say. Anything else would be apostasy, and we've seen how gender jihadists respond to traitors.
It's true. Ideologues wouldn't like that answer. but maybe politicians, famous for equivocating, might. Maybe it's better to be equally reviled by several sides instead of just really hated by one?
I think that, at some point, a prominent Democrat is going to have to give the gender people a good, firm "no." Carabello will burn up Bluesky with her wails, and Erin Reed will overload the internet with objections, but when other Democrats see that the sky has not fallen, they'll be more likely to stand their ground.
i havent been elected to anything but on the other hand i AM right here
do you want chief justice obama on the supreme court? vote me. do you want science back in medicine? vote me. like come on...who else do you even have?
The speed with which people whose job is talking are reduced to incoherence on their deeply held beliefs in this matter reminds me over and over again that what is really being negotiated is membership in a magical-thinking tribe.
Trump didn't win in '24 because of a surge of R voters, but because D votes wen Down by about 7 million.
R votes only went up by about 1 million.
Because the Republican'ts have mismanaged the economy and have murdered US citizens, the Dems should win big in '26 and '28, just as the Dems won big in 1932, after the R's ruined the economy with BS libertarian policies.
But if the big issues are either trans-women in women sports (and prisons, etc.) or about open borders (vs. managed immigration) then the Dems will be routed.
We have to keep the Dems from promoting dumb things that alienate Dem voters.
Unfortunately it's not going to be that easy. Democrats won't be able to just suddenly start saying "Well of course only men can get pregnant" and then otherwise pretend that the whole thing never happened, which is what they're going to try to do.
This was a big lie, and it told voters that Democrats are willing to say ANYTHING, no matter how absurd, to further an ideology, no matter how absurd. Voters will not be quick to forget what Democrats did, and may never forgive them.
If there is any hope of a Democratic recovery from its embrace of genderism, there will have to be an actual reckoning, with real consequences.
The gender word salad, tongue tied & twisted, language gymnastics is SO frikin annoying and confusing and hard to read/understand, makes my brain hurt and makes me nauseous. I read all the suggestions in the comments about what Verma should’ve said and I did in fact roll my eyes and shake my head cause it’s a twisting and turning of words. Im not in judgement of anyone’s comments but because the language of this gender ideology shitshow is maddening. It needs to be made clear so the average person can understand, just basic and not worry about offending people cause people are tuning out and yes as someone here said “rolling their eyes”.
This part of Lisa's latest stood out for me this morning:
"Such policies will make some things harder for a small group of people, especially natal males who never go through their endogenous puberty, and venture from puberty blockers straight to cross-sex hormones. They must be fortified to handle those hardships, the fallout from the difficult choices they made, just as they will have to handle the physical effects of transition, including infertility and lifelong medication. "
"the difficult choices they made"
Personally, I think this phrase glosses over how severely unequipped for these "choices" 99.9% of these individuals likely were. (It feels nitpicky to complain about this line of the latest fantastic piece -- which would be rejected by that corporate dinosaur, the NYT -- since, of course, Lisa is perfectly aware of the "unable to give informed consent" problem.)
But I would like to focus on the fact of thousands of GAC-maimed children and teens who will have to live in our midst is a good example of why it is that crafting public policy is such a grim endeavor. The best any leader can do is pick the least bad option, which never looks good near an election year.
I'm reminded of a bible verse (Strange. I've not been a believer for years, but I find myself quoting the Bible a hell of a lot lately. The extremes of our times make it incredibly useful to reference as an ancient work of social analysis -- part historical document and part literature -- discussing issues of that time, which demonstrates how far we as a species have NOT evolved beyond our primitive origins.):
Matthew 10:29–31 (KJV): Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.
As we know, it's typical for "man-on-the-street" opinion to be based on an implied belief that it is possible design a government system that somehow, miraculously, meets the unique needs of every single edge case that exists, while simultaneously providing the fair and just regulation of the "normal" situations and needs of the overwhelming majority of a given population of citizens (in this case, the needs of so-called "cis" people -- I fear we're stuck with "cis" as a term now.).
This a secular ideal I think reflects our culture's traditionally Christian expectations for what God can do. The voters demand an infallible (God-like) government - complete with the perfect laws and the perfect enforcers - to protect the needs of every single sparrow-child in America; and they vote for the politicians dishonest enough to promise such a thing.
Anyone who wishes to "sell" the American public on realistic measures to stop the damage that transgender ideologues have done to this country's institutions for medicine, education, law and an informed citizenry has a nearly impossible task of persuading her audience to finally grow up and give up on Utopianism.
Yes. If they were put on puberty blockers, they were children at the time so it’s unfair to call transition their “choice.” These truly are the lost boys and girls.
indeed -- it is exceedingly important to separate victims from perpetrators in this conversation. "trans people" generally are victims of this sick ideology which contorts people against themselves, and it was perpetrated on them by doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists, most of whom are not themselves "trans."
but some are. and there we have "verpetrators." one who -- as is reportedly common in csa cases -- perpetrates upon others that which was perpetrated upon themselves. richard leland levine would be one example. the mentioned "trans" representative would be another.
while the case is more sympathetic, generally, in the case of csa, "verpetrators" do not get off on the "my dad did it to me" reasoning. here likewise. "verpetrators" may be more understandable but they are no less guilty.
There's a bit of black humor in a final scene from that Simon Pegg zombie movie, Shaun of the Dead (2004), which depicts how harsh reality-based care for a person so damaged by a disaster like medical scandal as to be incompatible with "normal" human lifestyles can look. It's one of those jokes which is a perfect example of the kernel of tragedy in all good comedy. (wish I could find a clip to share with you here, but can't. You'll just have to watch the movie, I guess.)
Zombie movies are a perfect allegory for the last 15 or so years . . .
I loved that movie—will have to revisit. I hadn’t thought about zombie stories. I keep thinking of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with both its unethical medical experimentation and the monster doomed to a sad, lonely life and a violent death.
"Choice" in this context is a difficult moat to cross between worlds. Given that the MSM presents these kids as "knowing who they are," your wording in the piece affirms that lens--the kids "chose" it. The MSM , schooled by the TRAs, also dismiss instances of regret and put the onus on the child who has "chosen" this. Too bad, so sad, keep on your gender journey but shut the F up. But another talking point (taken from the abortion debate) is that this "choice" should be between families and their doctors. Given that most of us commenting here on your stack don't believe children can consent (choose) these interventions and get furious at that assumption of choice as being wrong, you might say something about a choice that was made by children's families in consultation with professionals. (That's more the concept than the wording.)
That was the only word phrase that struck me as needing editing, too— the rest was excellent. Maybe instead of choices they made— path they’ve been on? Steps they’ve taken?
Speaking as a reader with "skin in the game," but zero experience ever having anything I've written published in mainstream media, I can only tell you that I wanted to see a caveat built into this sentence something along the lines of this:
"They must be fortified to handle those hardships, the fallout from the difficult choices they made -- that is, if you call kids and other vulnerables going along with whatever decisions are made by the adults and other authorities guiding them a "choice" -- just as they will have to handle the physical effects of transition, including infertility and lifelong medication.
I suppose it was the word "choice" that must have triggered me too.
we are not stuck with anything. if someone introduces cis and trans with respect to people (rather than for example alkenes) i block them and leave the room. zero tolerance for sexist language.
Precisely that. This is similar to what you propose but I would argue substantially more rhetorically effective.
1) It’s short - 6 simple words. The point of Hawley’s question was to make Verma ramble incoherently in response to a “simple” question, and she fell directly into the trap. Most people recognize that forced “yes or no” questions in these hearings are obnoxious gotchas, and you can get away with answering in a short sentence or two sympathetically, but much more than that and you start to look dumb and dishonest.
2) It’s an honest and complete answer to the question, but gives up no meaningful ground. The most extreme trans activists would be salty that she used “male” to define a category that doesn’t include trans men, but the vast majority of Dems would either agree outright or at least forgive the answer, given the alternative.
3) It flips the “gotcha”. By implicitly accepting the definition that Hawley would give if asked, he’s forced to either abandon the point, or, if he wants to grandstand about transgender stuff, *he* would be the one forced to bring up alternative definitions of “man” into the discussion and he’d be the one eventually looking foolish as he goes increasingly off script and off “just asking simple questions”. (It’s possible he could riposte with “Are you implying there are men who are *not* adult human males?”, but I’m not convinced he’s that clever and even if he is, Verma could respond “transgender men are not generally categorized as adult human males” and still be in a bit better position than your proposed answer).
4) No sound bites - you can’t cut that into the next “for they/them” ad because she would literally not be saying anything that MAGA doesn’t agree with. The second sentence of your answer would be attack ad fodder.
The crux of the debate is whether or not to use a gender-identity inclusive definition of the word “man”, distinct from a sex-exclusive definition.
I have no issue with you taking one side of that debate strongly, but it’s disingenuous to deny that the definitional debate exists.
It’s also not the point of this exercise, which was to consider what Verma could have said to not look stupid while also not fully conceding to Hawley’s anti-trans position.
And it's not just the most "extreme trans activisits". EVERY Democrat in Congress fully endorses gender self-ID, and is a co-sponsor of a bill to make that the law nationwide. Any person claiming to be a man IS a man, and therefore male. Period, end of story, no debate. THAT is the position of the Democratic Party, adopted by ALL Democrats in Congress, ALL Democrat governors, and 99% of Democrat state legislators.
“There is a political party and professional apparatus that put male rapists and murderers in women's prisons, propagandized kindergartners that any of them could change sex, forced taxpayers and insurance customers to fund electrolysis and facial feminization surgeries, put any boy or man who claimed to be female into changing rooms with your daughters, forced you to declare the gender identity of your toddler at the doctor's office, deceived parents about the social transition of their children at school, banned psychological exploration of the mental health comorbidities that manifest as trans-ideation in the midst of an online social contagion generating 5000 percent increases in trans identification among youth, fined all-female nude spas run by immigrants for excluding men with penises who claimed to be women for violating the human rights of those men, imposed men on the athletic playing fields with your daughters, told thousands of parents to submit to the chemical castration of their children to avert imminent suicide risk for which no evidence has ever existed, subjected thousands of children to macabre sex changes procedures while lying about the existence of an evidence base where none ever existed while claiming on the basis of no evidence that the procedures were life-saving, investigated parents who refused to put their children on a pipeline to a lifetime of medicalized self-harm by pretending they had changed sex and sought to seize custody of them, and threatened to unperson you, attack your livelihood and leave you ostracized if you resisted it in any way with the aid of the monopolistic tech platforms that control the circulation of speech and money around the globe in a new surveillance and censorship regime that sought to dismantle biological reality in the name of narcissistic fantasies that it intended to entrench as the only truth while corrupting the truth-seeking apparatus of science itself -- and there is a majority of normal people in both parties who oppose this nonsense and want it stopped.”
6/20/2025
“Transgenderism must revert to being a form of private eccentricity. Recognition as one's preferred gender can be privately negotiated but with no coercion by any entity private or public. We all have an absolute right to affirm or not affirm, believe or not believe, that gender identity exists, that no one can infringe.
Sex segregated spaces and activities remain segregated by sex, not "gender identity."
Adults are free to inflict bodily self-harm on themselves in pursuit of an appearance they like but outside of any pretense of a medical protocol -- these are cosmetic procedures that come with no promises to relieve dysphoria or unlock an authentic self and the cost is borne solely by the person seeking them. Any such promises constitute consumer fraud. Children are of course unable to consent to such procedures.
The state has no role in affirming any aspect of cross-gender ideation, avoids proselytizing to children in schools or to anyone else in any interface it has with the public. The person who has inflicted bodily self-harm on his sex traits is no more a distinct class of person to whom special privileges or protections can be conferred than a person who has covered his face in tattoos. The person who believes with all his heart that he is a woman at heart and would die if others don't recognize him as such imposes no duty on any other person to share in that belief or to pretend to share in it. That person must develop resiliency about living in a pluralistic, liberal, democratic society where every person has a right to belief and a corollary right to unbelief that no one may legitimately infringe.
Any and all deviations from this resolution are morally illegitimate and practically untenable.
The attempt to turn a private eccentricity into a social cause that justified the remaking of society was a ghastly and destructive mistake. It was made inevitable by certain facets of the culture and certain aspects of our politics. We must learn the lesson that experience has now taught us.”
Lisa, you nail it AGAIN and AGAIN. This article as well as last week's about Gender Derangement Syndrome is so well-said. Any reaonable person, who reads your work here should be able to see what is going on and a path forward. There is no hate here. Thank you.
"We can support people who want to change their appearance to look like the opposite, or neither, sex, who have a sense of themselves at odds with their bodies, while upholding that sex is real and that it matters in law and policy and everyday life." This is a statement I could have gotten behind 6 years ago. Before it came to my attention how out of control the gender ideology had taken hold, how many teenage girls and boys to a lesser degree I knew would come to identify as a boy or something else, how many would seek cross-sex hormones. Before a ten-year-old girl I know would kill herself. Now that I have been down the rabbit hole, and seen the far-reaching domino effect of opening Pandora's box. it's hard to see how we can both be ok allowing people (children or adults) to engage in extreme sex trait modification and change sex markers on identification and still remain tethered to reality. This is a practice in deception. It necessitates either the demand that everyone pretend the person is the opposite sex (or whatever gender du jour from an infinite list) or that we institute potentially unethical screenings (genital inspections, DNA screening) to be able to sort who plays what sport, goes to what prison., etc. I am baffled by the medical establishment's violation of the Hippocratic oath by its willingness to sanction such risky and clearly not medically necessary interventions. This has led me to be less tolerant of most cosmetic surgery. People have raised the question of why it is ok for a woman to get breast augmentation surgery and not a man. After pondering this, I have been struck with "Good question!" Why are we ok with anyone doing this when there are clear medical risks and so many cases of disastrous end results? If this train is going to reverse course, I think the only hope is that the medical organizations come to their senses and change their recommended practices. This can happen due to pressure from litigation, insurance company's refusal to cover doctors who provide sex trait modification practices, and pressure from the general public (WRITE REASONABLE SOUNDING PLEAS TO DOCTORS & THERAPISTS to help them come to their senses!) This will be looked back on as a medical scandal in the future and Dems will then distance themselves from it. Though perhaps a third party could step in sooner as the voice of reason and garner enough votes from both disenfranchised Ds and Rs. God knows there are enough of them at this moment. This is the option I am personally rooting for.
Good article! I question though whether or not we really can get back to any state of social or political health while accepting transition as just another option or belief, even if we stop allowing trans-identified males in women’s and girls’ spaces. At best, transition is an individual attempt to escape oppressive gender norms that reinforces them for everyone else. As a lifelong feminist, I consider that a social ill. The trans political project has made it almost impossible to talk about the real problem.
I can’t imagine trying to compel people not to believe in gender identity. As I’ve written before, to me, it’s the same as believing in god. I won’t bother trying to get people not to believe, as long as they don’t make me pray and pretend I do believe.
I can also believe that no one should transition, but I’ve seen adults do all kinds of things to their bodies that I think are weird. It doesn’t have to infringe on other people if they accept the reality of sex. Big IF, I know.
I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant at all. I know I can’t stop people from believing in gender identity any more than I can get them to stop believing a medium can help them talk to their dead relatives or peach pit extract can cure their cancer. I just mean the idea belongs in that category—wrongheaded, dangerous, probably unhealthy, and obstructive to dealing with a real problem. It should be ok to think people who believe this are not in their right minds and not to accommodate it on a societal level any more than we accommodate people who need to build a fort out of couch cushions to be more comfortable in public.
sorry, but this is cowardly. feminists of a past generation actively fought against sexism -- which is what this is. they did NOT adopt a "live and let live" approach to the view that women were less intelligent or less able or more suited to home tasks. this is not a subject on which equivocation is appropriate. god is not provable one way or the other -- but this is provably wrong.
This SHOULD be in the NYT, Lisa! (But did you *see* the comments on Bret Stephens op-ed about Gavin Newsom yesterday?!). NYT will be the absolute LAST place to publish reality on this topic, as they are steered almost entirely by online perception, and the online world is slow to move...
Re: word choice. I think yours are great! Love the Nina Paley quote. What else do Americans need to hear from (formerly esteemed) news sources, politicians, and "experts"? Pretty simple, I think. "We were wrong". (And if they must save face, they can go on to elaborate: "Our intentions were to help, and we made decisions based on the information we had. We have since learned more." (K.I.S.S.)
Folks, remember that this never got edited. Had it been accepted, an editor and I would have pored over the language and could have refined etc. So I welcome edits, but with a caveat: if you'd like to change my suggested answers to that question, or some individual phrase, do so with mainstream media publications in mind. I am keen to hear how you think elected Democrats or those in the party machine should answer that question out there in the real world as it is. In fact, it would be great to do a post just with people's responses to this—the serious ones, that reflect the moment we're in. Have at it!
quibble, but you know, that heel achilles' achilles' heel never got healed. in fact he took an arrow in it and died or something.
and also, it's not an achilles' heel if you weren't winning before they got you there...an achilles' heel is a weak spot on a winner, not a weak spot on someone already weaker. there isn't really a special name for that that i can think of...because...why would there be.
stop expecting these people to change. they bought it hook, line, and sinker, and dug an enormous hole with it. (triicky but they managed.) any step back now would be an admission not merely of an honest mistake but rather of a stupid mistake, a mistake which shows them out to be careless, thoughtless, and just dumb. it would also mean admitting that they spent ten years in denial despite there being at least some voices explaining the problems as best they were allowed to. and another reason they're not going to admit it is because they're careless, thoughtless, and just dumb. so there, pretty much....
also, stop expecting the new york times to publish anything of this nature. also, stop caring whether the new york times publishes something. it's lost all meaning. YOU are the one with authority, trust, and reliability now. what YOU publish matters. i'll be your editor if you want, i'm pretty quick at it.
Well, that's true, too. Not a great title. One option was: "Democrats Need to Answer This Simple Question if They Want to Win." Or something like that.
i think mine would be, "we need new democrats if we want democrats to win." they've had enough chances, and one would be a fool to trust them on the subject at this point, whatever their mouths say. distrust of a person rarely remains confined to one particular area, but rather touches their whole character, and so...one would be a fool to trust them on anything. we would be fools to trust them again ourselves, and if we expect a few words to win back the belabored, splintered and then shattered trust of others, we must think those people fools too.
we must, absolutely must, look to people who *at the very least* have not yet had the chance to make fools of themselves in this regard -- if we were to restrict ourselves to people who have actively proven their integrity and intelligence through the whole affair, it would be you, me, jk rowling, jesse singal, and not that many more. while i think we together could form a more capable cabinet than the *current* one, that's not a high bar, and we need a lot more people than that.
this is why my eye twitches every time people mention newsom. he is an invertebrate who says whatever fits the setting, and he will faceplant before a national audience if a question of this nature is asked. so he's hopeless, even leaving aside the to-me-disqualifying fact that he was fine with it for a decade and signed off on a number of farcical things as governor of california.
i decided several months ago to put shawn fain on my personal presidential ticket, there being no one else in view without disqualifications of the nature of newsom's -- i have no idea what shawn fain thinks on the subject, which is better than 99.99% of elected democrats. shawn fain is not technically an elected democrat, but he won the uaw leadership election a few years ago, which has a votership of 400,000 -- so it's almost twice the size of most congressional districts, and moreover it's composed pretty much entirely of the kind of person democrats desperately want to win back. as far as black marks on his record, he was a little rude once and there are some corruption allegations. so -- in modern teams, clean as a squeaky fiddle.
he's not *running*, of course, yet -- but neither was eisenhower, until people cheered him into it. so -- we want shawn! we want shawn! we want shawn!
I agree that Verma would have appeared much more credible if she had answered Hawley’s question as Lisa Selin Davis very reasonably suggests. The reason why Verma didn’t is that she refuses to challenge the project of replacing sex (a material fact) with gender identity (a non-falsifiable metaphysical belief) everywhere and always. This project casts any reference to, or acknowledgment of, our sexed reality as offensive and hateful towards those people who want to deny it. Notice the intellectual sleight of hand in that last claim: rejecting the IDEA that gender identity should replace sex is equated with hating PEOPLE. Their acceptance of the faulty equation of ideas with people keeps Democratic politicians in a stranglehold, makes them look utterly stupid, and gives Republican politicians an unearned opportunity to look like the only reasonable people in the room.
>makes them look utterly stupid
have you considered its not just a look
sounds edgy but would YOU go along with all this stuff for a second? no. theyve gone along with it for 10 years. stupid, coward, sick -- take your pick, but it's one of em.
"rejecting the IDEA that gender identity should replace sex is equated with hating PEOPLE" Perfectly stated. That's definitely a core problem in these discussions.
It’s intellectual sleight of hand and emotional manipulation.
Exactly. My thinking currently is we have to “flip the script” when speaking or writing about this—to get and keep the emphasis on women and girls and & keep even the word “trans” out of it altogether. In her testimony in Delaware (posted today) Nancy Hogshead does a superlative job of this. See what you think: https://substack.com/inbox/post/186995789 (I recommend watching it, as well as reading the excerpts.)
I still object to the term “gender-affirming care” and refuse to use it. It is a grotesque euphemism for the physical and psychological mutilation of children. There is no “gender” and there sure as hell is no “care”.
If we continue to cede this ground, then saying that we oppose it for any reason makes us look like we oppose healthcare, when obviously nothing could be further from the truth.
The pro-trans crowd has accomplished the most successful propaganda campaign in my lifetime. I refuse to assist them in it.
You can object, that’s fine. Again, this was written for a normie audience. That’s an accepted term in msm
The fact remains that most people (reasonably) conflate the terms sex and gender; after all, if gender actually exists, why would there ever need to be a surgical or medical alteration of a sexed body?
Why can’t a “masculine” gender identity exist in an unmodified, female body?
The notion of “gender” was created because human beings cannot actually change sex.
But I have been consistently frustrated by the wholesale acceptance of “gender” AND the notion that “gender” transforms by medically or surgically altering a sexed body.
Not at all faulting you, Lisa, but there needs to be consistent challenges to these notions.
No one had a “gender identity” when I was growing up in the 80s.
I agree. I'm moving toward ‘organised medical fraud’ and ‘sex-rejecting interventions’. I find it hard even to use medical words like ‘surgery’ and ‘mastectomy’ for what they do to fellow human beings. The procedures and words they use have been hijacked from mainstream medical practice. “Gender affirming care” - all of it - should be located outside of/rejected by mainstream medicine (where law should take its course). The medical profession should stand up and remove the practice licences of all doctors who use their training and expertise to administer any kind of “gender affirming care” to fellow humans, and especially to children. As a paediatrician, I will NEVER follow WPATH ‘guidelines’, nor the copycat ‘guidelines’ that have sprung up all over the world. And I will resist, to the best of my ability, using any words or language that obfuscate what stand for, and what they do.
I agree, Mark Patrick, and I worry that jargon, of whatever kind, is a turn-off. The more jargon-y and painfully academic/hair-splitting a term sounds, the more suspect it is, at least to me.
I understand that in this discussion people are trying to find terms that will be acceptable to mainstream liberals (so-called anyway) who are all aboard the trans train and to the mainstream press; and I understand that that's a tall order and that many of us will disagree with each other.
I just can't get on board with what I see as Orwellian turns of phrase. I think they're incredibly dangerous and have helped push us to the point where society is now. "Gender-affirming care" is not a neutral term. It is a biased term, and it was deliberately chosen to obscure reality and to sound benign.
"Sex-rejecting interventions" sounds accurate to me. (I bet it does to Paul McHugh as well.) But I think we're in the minority.
"gender-denying", & "gender-deviant".....
Lisa: considering that this is an accepted term in MSM (vague as it is), what would you reasonably replace it with in an op-ed for the NYT or the like? I'm turning these critiques into an interesting exercise to see how we can all craft messaging for those outside our echo chambers.
Sexual organ surgery?
Opposite sex surgery?
Sex characteristic surgery?
I thought "pediatric sex-trait modification" (HHS report) is a factual way to put it. The fact that this will not be seen as a neutral, dispassionate term by the NYTimes just shows that they insist on "affirmative" language, i.e. language that implies a positive value judgment. The fact that they see neutral, factual descriptions as offensive and "invalidating" proves how much this entire project depends on social affirmation because it lacks a foundation in reality.
Yes, pediatric sex trait modification is both descriptive and neutral.
As for NYT, if a letter writer professes to being liberal/Democrat and against gender woo-woo, the letter will not be published.
NYT is allowing a little nuance, a few regrets, but overall the "paper of record " will never allow doubts about gender identity. Identity is sacrosanct.
that paper has burnt al repute and relevance. i am tired of seeing or hearing about it. what we have here in this comment section is a whole bundle of people who recognize they shouldn't trust the things they used to trust but who don't know what else to do with themselves. i suggest books from before 1900 and also my highly intelligent podcast-cum-radio-show which should be all the evidence you need that I am the new paper of record. write it on my skin if you want it to count.
I'm thinking, though, about using language to speak to the normies that don't know what we know. I do like sex-trait modification.
I understand, and maybe that's a good alternative. It still sounds too benign to me.
"Modification" -- as if it's like trying a new brand of mascara or changing a hairstyle. Cutting off healthy breasts or the butchering of male body parts to pretend to create female ones is way more than "modification."
But as I say, if that's what it takes to get our foot in the door, to get the clueless to wake up, then that's what it takes.
I think Leor Sapir uses something like “sex trait modification procedures” (or treatments).
We already have words for these "treatments".
Castration
Double mastectomy
Anabolic-androgenic steroids (or "roiding" if you want to use the slang term)
The fact that they changed these commonly understood terms to jargon speaks to the deceptive nature of this "care".
>castration
penectomy and/or orchidectomy. lets be scientific here!
Just take a single step backwards on the euphemism treadmill and call it “sex-reassignment surgery/medicine”. It’s slightly less honest, in that you can’t actually change sex (while I suppose you can “affirm” a gender identity). The upside is that it nips in the bud absurdities like “hair transplants are gender affirming care” and “if you allow males to get breast reductions for gynecomastia you must allow females to get elective mastectomies to look more male”.
Being just the last step on the euphemism treadmill, you could maybe sneak it in without getting flagged - it’s not obviously rhetorically loaded, and it would probably come off to the editors as more old-fashioned than subversive.
So-called "gender-affirming" is ALSO the same as "gender-denying", "gender-divisive", "gender-destructive", "gender-altering", "gender-mutilating", "gender-negating", "gender-averse", etc.,etc.,..... An OPINION is still just an opinion, however much alphabet soup follows a persons name....
"In reporting on this issue for the better part of the last five years, my north star has always been a quote from the artist Nina Paley: 'Sex is real. People are weird.' We can support people who want to change their appearance to look like the opposite, or neither, sex, who have a sense of themselves at odds with their bodies, while upholding that sex is real and that it matters in law and policy and everyday life."
I love that Nina Paley quote, too. I am also on board with supporting people "who want to change their appearance to look like the opposite, or neither, sex". What I am not fine with at this point of the evolution of my own views on this (and this complicates this quest for a "middle ground") is defining "support" as my own participation (or shall I say collusion) in the reality-denying fictional identity. That is, the demand that I use the "preferred" pronouns and pretend the person I'm interacting with is actually the opposite sex, even in contexts where it superficially doesn't seem to matter. Being allowed to describe reality accurately matters to me, as does permission not to support what I think is an unhealthy denial of reality, without being labeled narrow-minded or a bigot. I fully support anyone's right to style and express themselves however they want, but not their right to force others to pretend they are something they are not.
I think this is probably a position the majority of society intuitively shares. Yet I'm afraid it will be nearly impossible to get Democrats (and what Ruy Teixereira calls the "Brahmin left" more broadly) to heal their Achilles heal to this degree, until they too realize that "trans" is not an innate condition but always a coping mechanism for other issues. As long as they operate on the assumption that some people really "are trans", they will always think that "good people" must accept them as the opposite sex, even if they allow for carve-outs of areas where doing so leads to blatant unfairness like sports. Even if they are eventually forced to yield on that issue and the protection of children from what they may come to view as too risky but not fundamentally misguided medical interventions, they still haven't fully recovered, and allowed society to recover, from the activist-driven project to pretend that sex is an "identity" not a reality. What I think ultimately needs to happen is the realization that construing the categories of men and women as as "identities" rather than realities is just reinforcing regressive stereotypes, and I'm afraid we are still a long way from that.
a favorite trick of the castrationist cult is to cast anyone speaking up for health or human dignity and wholeness as a "traditionalist." the purpose of my show kandybarre, which i'll have all of you know i could take to whatever stage needed, real or virtual, is to show that I, a guy, can act whatever way i damn well please, without needing consistency, definition, pills, or the opinion of any headshrinker as to what i find worth doing and fun.
it's a shame that charlie kirk had his head blown off because i would have loved to debate the mf in drag, which the kids in MY day used to call "trapping," as in IT'S A TRAP!
and it would be a trap because -- bold claim -- i could make him or absolutely any of these people look like complete morons if given five minutes. yet -- because they all know that -- they won't give me five minutes. will you?
<<She could have said, “By your definition, based on sex, no. But by mine, based on identity—yes.”>>
Absolutely, but this observation tells us something about gender ideologues; namely, they really do believe. They're not kidding when they say that everyone has a gender identity, which is all that defines sex. They mean it--all of it. Sure, there are politicians who are just saying what they feel they have to say, but Chase Strangio and Erin Reed and and Alejandra Carabello are true believers. They'll fight this war to the bitter end and then some.
If Verma is one of that ilk, then she could have said nothing other than what she *did* say. Anything else would be apostasy, and we've seen how gender jihadists respond to traitors.
It's true. Ideologues wouldn't like that answer. but maybe politicians, famous for equivocating, might. Maybe it's better to be equally reviled by several sides instead of just really hated by one?
I think that, at some point, a prominent Democrat is going to have to give the gender people a good, firm "no." Carabello will burn up Bluesky with her wails, and Erin Reed will overload the internet with objections, but when other Democrats see that the sky has not fallen, they'll be more likely to stand their ground.
I don't know who that Democrat would be, though.
Rahm Emmanuel is making a weak stab at it.
its meeeeee
i havent been elected to anything but on the other hand i AM right here
do you want chief justice obama on the supreme court? vote me. do you want science back in medicine? vote me. like come on...who else do you even have?
The speed with which people whose job is talking are reduced to incoherence on their deeply held beliefs in this matter reminds me over and over again that what is really being negotiated is membership in a magical-thinking tribe.
Trump didn't win in '24 because of a surge of R voters, but because D votes wen Down by about 7 million.
R votes only went up by about 1 million.
Because the Republican'ts have mismanaged the economy and have murdered US citizens, the Dems should win big in '26 and '28, just as the Dems won big in 1932, after the R's ruined the economy with BS libertarian policies.
But if the big issues are either trans-women in women sports (and prisons, etc.) or about open borders (vs. managed immigration) then the Dems will be routed.
We have to keep the Dems from promoting dumb things that alienate Dem voters.
We can try
Unfortunately it's not going to be that easy. Democrats won't be able to just suddenly start saying "Well of course only men can get pregnant" and then otherwise pretend that the whole thing never happened, which is what they're going to try to do.
This was a big lie, and it told voters that Democrats are willing to say ANYTHING, no matter how absurd, to further an ideology, no matter how absurd. Voters will not be quick to forget what Democrats did, and may never forgive them.
If there is any hope of a Democratic recovery from its embrace of genderism, there will have to be an actual reckoning, with real consequences.
i propose myself for reckoner
The gender word salad, tongue tied & twisted, language gymnastics is SO frikin annoying and confusing and hard to read/understand, makes my brain hurt and makes me nauseous. I read all the suggestions in the comments about what Verma should’ve said and I did in fact roll my eyes and shake my head cause it’s a twisting and turning of words. Im not in judgement of anyone’s comments but because the language of this gender ideology shitshow is maddening. It needs to be made clear so the average person can understand, just basic and not worry about offending people cause people are tuning out and yes as someone here said “rolling their eyes”.
Just venting 🤠
vent away!
Perhaps a recovery of the Democratic party is not the answer. Perhaps it is the ripe moment for a third, reasonable party to rise up to viability.
If ever there was such a moment, it’s now. Where is this party!?!
https://ourparty.substack.com/ BUT NO ONE ACTUALLY CARES apparently
This part of Lisa's latest stood out for me this morning:
"Such policies will make some things harder for a small group of people, especially natal males who never go through their endogenous puberty, and venture from puberty blockers straight to cross-sex hormones. They must be fortified to handle those hardships, the fallout from the difficult choices they made, just as they will have to handle the physical effects of transition, including infertility and lifelong medication. "
"the difficult choices they made"
Personally, I think this phrase glosses over how severely unequipped for these "choices" 99.9% of these individuals likely were. (It feels nitpicky to complain about this line of the latest fantastic piece -- which would be rejected by that corporate dinosaur, the NYT -- since, of course, Lisa is perfectly aware of the "unable to give informed consent" problem.)
But I would like to focus on the fact of thousands of GAC-maimed children and teens who will have to live in our midst is a good example of why it is that crafting public policy is such a grim endeavor. The best any leader can do is pick the least bad option, which never looks good near an election year.
I'm reminded of a bible verse (Strange. I've not been a believer for years, but I find myself quoting the Bible a hell of a lot lately. The extremes of our times make it incredibly useful to reference as an ancient work of social analysis -- part historical document and part literature -- discussing issues of that time, which demonstrates how far we as a species have NOT evolved beyond our primitive origins.):
Matthew 10:29–31 (KJV): Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.
As we know, it's typical for "man-on-the-street" opinion to be based on an implied belief that it is possible design a government system that somehow, miraculously, meets the unique needs of every single edge case that exists, while simultaneously providing the fair and just regulation of the "normal" situations and needs of the overwhelming majority of a given population of citizens (in this case, the needs of so-called "cis" people -- I fear we're stuck with "cis" as a term now.).
This a secular ideal I think reflects our culture's traditionally Christian expectations for what God can do. The voters demand an infallible (God-like) government - complete with the perfect laws and the perfect enforcers - to protect the needs of every single sparrow-child in America; and they vote for the politicians dishonest enough to promise such a thing.
Anyone who wishes to "sell" the American public on realistic measures to stop the damage that transgender ideologues have done to this country's institutions for medicine, education, law and an informed citizenry has a nearly impossible task of persuading her audience to finally grow up and give up on Utopianism.
Yes. If they were put on puberty blockers, they were children at the time so it’s unfair to call transition their “choice.” These truly are the lost boys and girls.
indeed -- it is exceedingly important to separate victims from perpetrators in this conversation. "trans people" generally are victims of this sick ideology which contorts people against themselves, and it was perpetrated on them by doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists, most of whom are not themselves "trans."
but some are. and there we have "verpetrators." one who -- as is reportedly common in csa cases -- perpetrates upon others that which was perpetrated upon themselves. richard leland levine would be one example. the mentioned "trans" representative would be another.
while the case is more sympathetic, generally, in the case of csa, "verpetrators" do not get off on the "my dad did it to me" reasoning. here likewise. "verpetrators" may be more understandable but they are no less guilty.
There's a bit of black humor in a final scene from that Simon Pegg zombie movie, Shaun of the Dead (2004), which depicts how harsh reality-based care for a person so damaged by a disaster like medical scandal as to be incompatible with "normal" human lifestyles can look. It's one of those jokes which is a perfect example of the kernel of tragedy in all good comedy. (wish I could find a clip to share with you here, but can't. You'll just have to watch the movie, I guess.)
Zombie movies are a perfect allegory for the last 15 or so years . . .
I loved that movie—will have to revisit. I hadn’t thought about zombie stories. I keep thinking of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with both its unethical medical experimentation and the monster doomed to a sad, lonely life and a violent death.
Sorry to grim out on you this morning.
How would you phrase it instead, for a mainstream media publication?
"Choice" in this context is a difficult moat to cross between worlds. Given that the MSM presents these kids as "knowing who they are," your wording in the piece affirms that lens--the kids "chose" it. The MSM , schooled by the TRAs, also dismiss instances of regret and put the onus on the child who has "chosen" this. Too bad, so sad, keep on your gender journey but shut the F up. But another talking point (taken from the abortion debate) is that this "choice" should be between families and their doctors. Given that most of us commenting here on your stack don't believe children can consent (choose) these interventions and get furious at that assumption of choice as being wrong, you might say something about a choice that was made by children's families in consultation with professionals. (That's more the concept than the wording.)
That was the only word phrase that struck me as needing editing, too— the rest was excellent. Maybe instead of choices they made— path they’ve been on? Steps they’ve taken?
Speaking as a reader with "skin in the game," but zero experience ever having anything I've written published in mainstream media, I can only tell you that I wanted to see a caveat built into this sentence something along the lines of this:
"They must be fortified to handle those hardships, the fallout from the difficult choices they made -- that is, if you call kids and other vulnerables going along with whatever decisions are made by the adults and other authorities guiding them a "choice" -- just as they will have to handle the physical effects of transition, including infertility and lifelong medication.
I suppose it was the word "choice" that must have triggered me too.
How about: ersatz choices
Or
“choices”
we are not stuck with anything. if someone introduces cis and trans with respect to people (rather than for example alkenes) i block them and leave the room. zero tolerance for sexist language.
“Adult human males cannot get pregnant”.
Precisely that. This is similar to what you propose but I would argue substantially more rhetorically effective.
1) It’s short - 6 simple words. The point of Hawley’s question was to make Verma ramble incoherently in response to a “simple” question, and she fell directly into the trap. Most people recognize that forced “yes or no” questions in these hearings are obnoxious gotchas, and you can get away with answering in a short sentence or two sympathetically, but much more than that and you start to look dumb and dishonest.
2) It’s an honest and complete answer to the question, but gives up no meaningful ground. The most extreme trans activists would be salty that she used “male” to define a category that doesn’t include trans men, but the vast majority of Dems would either agree outright or at least forgive the answer, given the alternative.
3) It flips the “gotcha”. By implicitly accepting the definition that Hawley would give if asked, he’s forced to either abandon the point, or, if he wants to grandstand about transgender stuff, *he* would be the one forced to bring up alternative definitions of “man” into the discussion and he’d be the one eventually looking foolish as he goes increasingly off script and off “just asking simple questions”. (It’s possible he could riposte with “Are you implying there are men who are *not* adult human males?”, but I’m not convinced he’s that clever and even if he is, Verma could respond “transgender men are not generally categorized as adult human males” and still be in a bit better position than your proposed answer).
4) No sound bites - you can’t cut that into the next “for they/them” ad because she would literally not be saying anything that MAGA doesn’t agree with. The second sentence of your answer would be attack ad fodder.
Theodric:
“Adult human males cannot get pregnant" is simply "Men can't get pregnant." That's enough.
Please reread the rest of my post, particularly 3, which addresses this.
Yes, I had already read your whole post.
I think we're drowning in words here.
The crux of the debate is whether or not to use a gender-identity inclusive definition of the word “man”, distinct from a sex-exclusive definition.
I have no issue with you taking one side of that debate strongly, but it’s disingenuous to deny that the definitional debate exists.
It’s also not the point of this exercise, which was to consider what Verma could have said to not look stupid while also not fully conceding to Hawley’s anti-trans position.
"The most extreme trans activists would be salty that she used “male” to define a category that doesn’t include trans men"
It's not just "the most extreme trans activists", and they would be a lot more than "salty".
Had she been so foolish as to say that, Verma would have been denounced as a transphobe and indundated with death and rape threats
And she would lose her job. Her employer, Physicians for Reproductive Health, is 100% pure transqueer.
Here is what their CEO and President said last month: "laws that ban transgender women and girls from sports participation are inherently violent and oppressive." https://prh.org/press-releases/scotus-transgender-sports-ban-cases/
And it's not just the most "extreme trans activisits". EVERY Democrat in Congress fully endorses gender self-ID, and is a co-sponsor of a bill to make that the law nationwide. Any person claiming to be a man IS a man, and therefore male. Period, end of story, no debate. THAT is the position of the Democratic Party, adopted by ALL Democrats in Congress, ALL Democrat governors, and 99% of Democrat state legislators.
If she’s that hardcore, why did she not simply answer “yes”?
These are a series of posts by Wesley Yang on X:
1/29/2025
“There are no "anti-trans extremists."
“There is a political party and professional apparatus that put male rapists and murderers in women's prisons, propagandized kindergartners that any of them could change sex, forced taxpayers and insurance customers to fund electrolysis and facial feminization surgeries, put any boy or man who claimed to be female into changing rooms with your daughters, forced you to declare the gender identity of your toddler at the doctor's office, deceived parents about the social transition of their children at school, banned psychological exploration of the mental health comorbidities that manifest as trans-ideation in the midst of an online social contagion generating 5000 percent increases in trans identification among youth, fined all-female nude spas run by immigrants for excluding men with penises who claimed to be women for violating the human rights of those men, imposed men on the athletic playing fields with your daughters, told thousands of parents to submit to the chemical castration of their children to avert imminent suicide risk for which no evidence has ever existed, subjected thousands of children to macabre sex changes procedures while lying about the existence of an evidence base where none ever existed while claiming on the basis of no evidence that the procedures were life-saving, investigated parents who refused to put their children on a pipeline to a lifetime of medicalized self-harm by pretending they had changed sex and sought to seize custody of them, and threatened to unperson you, attack your livelihood and leave you ostracized if you resisted it in any way with the aid of the monopolistic tech platforms that control the circulation of speech and money around the globe in a new surveillance and censorship regime that sought to dismantle biological reality in the name of narcissistic fantasies that it intended to entrench as the only truth while corrupting the truth-seeking apparatus of science itself -- and there is a majority of normal people in both parties who oppose this nonsense and want it stopped.”
6/20/2025
“Transgenderism must revert to being a form of private eccentricity. Recognition as one's preferred gender can be privately negotiated but with no coercion by any entity private or public. We all have an absolute right to affirm or not affirm, believe or not believe, that gender identity exists, that no one can infringe.
Sex segregated spaces and activities remain segregated by sex, not "gender identity."
Adults are free to inflict bodily self-harm on themselves in pursuit of an appearance they like but outside of any pretense of a medical protocol -- these are cosmetic procedures that come with no promises to relieve dysphoria or unlock an authentic self and the cost is borne solely by the person seeking them. Any such promises constitute consumer fraud. Children are of course unable to consent to such procedures.
The state has no role in affirming any aspect of cross-gender ideation, avoids proselytizing to children in schools or to anyone else in any interface it has with the public. The person who has inflicted bodily self-harm on his sex traits is no more a distinct class of person to whom special privileges or protections can be conferred than a person who has covered his face in tattoos. The person who believes with all his heart that he is a woman at heart and would die if others don't recognize him as such imposes no duty on any other person to share in that belief or to pretend to share in it. That person must develop resiliency about living in a pluralistic, liberal, democratic society where every person has a right to belief and a corollary right to unbelief that no one may legitimately infringe.
Any and all deviations from this resolution are morally illegitimate and practically untenable.
The attempt to turn a private eccentricity into a social cause that justified the remaking of society was a ghastly and destructive mistake. It was made inevitable by certain facets of the culture and certain aspects of our politics. We must learn the lesson that experience has now taught us.”
Lisa, you nail it AGAIN and AGAIN. This article as well as last week's about Gender Derangement Syndrome is so well-said. Any reaonable person, who reads your work here should be able to see what is going on and a path forward. There is no hate here. Thank you.
"We can support people who want to change their appearance to look like the opposite, or neither, sex, who have a sense of themselves at odds with their bodies, while upholding that sex is real and that it matters in law and policy and everyday life." This is a statement I could have gotten behind 6 years ago. Before it came to my attention how out of control the gender ideology had taken hold, how many teenage girls and boys to a lesser degree I knew would come to identify as a boy or something else, how many would seek cross-sex hormones. Before a ten-year-old girl I know would kill herself. Now that I have been down the rabbit hole, and seen the far-reaching domino effect of opening Pandora's box. it's hard to see how we can both be ok allowing people (children or adults) to engage in extreme sex trait modification and change sex markers on identification and still remain tethered to reality. This is a practice in deception. It necessitates either the demand that everyone pretend the person is the opposite sex (or whatever gender du jour from an infinite list) or that we institute potentially unethical screenings (genital inspections, DNA screening) to be able to sort who plays what sport, goes to what prison., etc. I am baffled by the medical establishment's violation of the Hippocratic oath by its willingness to sanction such risky and clearly not medically necessary interventions. This has led me to be less tolerant of most cosmetic surgery. People have raised the question of why it is ok for a woman to get breast augmentation surgery and not a man. After pondering this, I have been struck with "Good question!" Why are we ok with anyone doing this when there are clear medical risks and so many cases of disastrous end results? If this train is going to reverse course, I think the only hope is that the medical organizations come to their senses and change their recommended practices. This can happen due to pressure from litigation, insurance company's refusal to cover doctors who provide sex trait modification practices, and pressure from the general public (WRITE REASONABLE SOUNDING PLEAS TO DOCTORS & THERAPISTS to help them come to their senses!) This will be looked back on as a medical scandal in the future and Dems will then distance themselves from it. Though perhaps a third party could step in sooner as the voice of reason and garner enough votes from both disenfranchised Ds and Rs. God knows there are enough of them at this moment. This is the option I am personally rooting for.
Good article! I question though whether or not we really can get back to any state of social or political health while accepting transition as just another option or belief, even if we stop allowing trans-identified males in women’s and girls’ spaces. At best, transition is an individual attempt to escape oppressive gender norms that reinforces them for everyone else. As a lifelong feminist, I consider that a social ill. The trans political project has made it almost impossible to talk about the real problem.
I can’t imagine trying to compel people not to believe in gender identity. As I’ve written before, to me, it’s the same as believing in god. I won’t bother trying to get people not to believe, as long as they don’t make me pray and pretend I do believe.
I can also believe that no one should transition, but I’ve seen adults do all kinds of things to their bodies that I think are weird. It doesn’t have to infringe on other people if they accept the reality of sex. Big IF, I know.
I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant at all. I know I can’t stop people from believing in gender identity any more than I can get them to stop believing a medium can help them talk to their dead relatives or peach pit extract can cure their cancer. I just mean the idea belongs in that category—wrongheaded, dangerous, probably unhealthy, and obstructive to dealing with a real problem. It should be ok to think people who believe this are not in their right minds and not to accommodate it on a societal level any more than we accommodate people who need to build a fort out of couch cushions to be more comfortable in public.
I absolutely believe it should be treated as a religious belief!
BINGO!
Well said, Understanderson!
sorry, but this is cowardly. feminists of a past generation actively fought against sexism -- which is what this is. they did NOT adopt a "live and let live" approach to the view that women were less intelligent or less able or more suited to home tasks. this is not a subject on which equivocation is appropriate. god is not provable one way or the other -- but this is provably wrong.
This SHOULD be in the NYT, Lisa! (But did you *see* the comments on Bret Stephens op-ed about Gavin Newsom yesterday?!). NYT will be the absolute LAST place to publish reality on this topic, as they are steered almost entirely by online perception, and the online world is slow to move...
Re: word choice. I think yours are great! Love the Nina Paley quote. What else do Americans need to hear from (formerly esteemed) news sources, politicians, and "experts"? Pretty simple, I think. "We were wrong". (And if they must save face, they can go on to elaborate: "Our intentions were to help, and we made decisions based on the information we had. We have since learned more." (K.I.S.S.)
they will never say that they were wrong. they will die first.
and why would you care for more thoughts from someone so brutally, stupidly, pathetically, idiotically wrong?
i've been right the whole time. maybe listen to me instead, WORLD.