I want to know who was in the room and what was said at HRC the moment they decided to pivot to trans. What were the brainstorming sessions like at gay rights NGOs when they committed themselves to marketing horrible destructive ideas about “trans rights”?
As much as I want to find the lead villain in all of this, I think what's happened with gender medicine is the ultimate example of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." I think these ideas spread by really well-intentioned people in the beginning. I, myself, created a 90 minute documentary 20 years ago about a transman's "journey." The goal truly was to bring greater acceptance for this tiny minority of trans people. Just to end truly hateful discrimination against them. But when I look back now on the story we told, it was basically the story of a gender non conforming girl who was terrified of being gay and sought solace in this new identity. How many parents of young gender non conforming girls saw that film and thought... oh this is my kid. I have no idea. I can assure you with full certainty that nobody involved with that film (including the main subject) had any idea of what was to come with "youth gender medicine." Are we villains in this story? Maybe. But I hope not. Our intentions were good but we set some of those pavers on that road to hell. How many people in the professions of therapy, medicine, education, non profits, media, etc set just one or two pavers? I think the villains capitalized on it,and exploited it; but the road itself was paved by so many do-gooders, who truly knew not what they were doing. And once the road was paved it became really hard to stop so many from running down it.
Well said; I've made similar comments about the Covid response. Lots of good intentions leading to lots of collateral damage, vastly outweighing any possible positive effects. Good intentions also serve as a justification for authoritarianism, lending legitimacy to lockdowns and mandates, as well as to the suppression of dissent similar to what we see with the trans movement.
On the gender-dysphoric kids front, it started with the Dutch researchers in the 1990s and then was expanded to the US through Norman Spack. Other early champions include Johanna Olson-Kennedy and Scott Leibovitz. Although those two have since splintered. He's more about moderation and she is opposed to anything but the mildest gatekeeping. A big shift was the Obama admin's 2016 change to section 1557 of the ACA, which opened the door for wide coverage of gender-transition treatment for kids. The availability of these treatments stoked demand and then a feedback loop as more kids heard about these treatments and more doctors saw an opportunity to open pediatric gender clinics. Activists such as Andrea James and Alejandra Caraballo as well as institutions such as GLAAD have policed the media, seeking to scare away critics. That has helped maintain the illusion in the public that these treatments are safe and effective and well studied and are not controversial among experts.
Add to this: the introduction of smart phones (precise year?), the invention of Youtube & the publication of the Yogyakarta Principles & lobbying based on them, and finally: the role of higher education in popularizing Queer Theory and the spread, via "diversity and inclusivity" principles into "Social and Emotional Learning" in high schools and elementary schools. There's a broad interplay of these forces that created the perfect storm.
So much is still the wish not to be same sex attracted, and wool pulled over your eyes by those who make so much money from these supposedly "painless, necessary" body modifications now encapsulated in the captured language, "embodiment goals."
One group that needs more focus is lesbians who transitioned. They enabled the AGPs and were the conduits for bringing gender into gay and lesbian rights organizations. Some of the worst activists are Ft"M"s. Shannon Minter and Stephen Whittle come to mind as earlier ones. But there is Jake Payne (smeared Zucker and I am assuming HSTS), Evan Urquhart, etc. Many like Jamie Dodger and Cayden Carter (who wound up in a colostomy bag) pushed all this on Youtube. Mentally unwell same-sex attracted women, they've done a ton of damage. Maybe not at the top of the list, but at the top of my list.
Certainly humans have always been in the business of "solving" (escaping, ignoring, avoiding, distracting, etc) the "problem" of emotional pain. Enter a concrete pathway; a to-do list, presented as legitimate medicine, as a possible solution for chronic, intense pain. Enter a conceptual pathway (the gendered soul) that offers a concordant solution for shame (one-size-fits all pathway out of the sexual shame of agp, sexual abuse, and/or same-sex attraction). All of this in the context of a social justice framework for suffering (pain) where opting in to oppression is a badge of honor and legitimacy and transition is a social justice action. All of this in the context of a parenting framework that has pendulum swung from 'seen, not heard' to centering childrens needs without any developmental consideration for the difference between need and desire and re-writing the existence of pain, discomfort, sorrow and limitations as indicators of problems that my be ameliorated by parents vs. as inevitable, often random or unjust, human experiences. And all of this in an (admirable) context of the popular Western narrative: "humans as a species don't seem to be doing so great so we must change how we are doing things" (meta problem solving).
I keep coming back to physicians' culpability in all this. If so many physicians had not unquestioningly gone along with gender identity nonsense rather than demanding scientific proof of gender identity for one thing, as well as proof of the safety and efficacy of the drugs and surgeries, this scandal would not be such a big one. It took buy-in by the medical establishment to get this thing going, to grow it big, and it is required to keep it going. These girls can't slice off their own breasts. Boys can't remove their own testicles. Teens can't write their own prescriptions. Physicians failed to ask questions and now are routinely providing so-called "gender-affirming care" even though there's no proof that it is safe or effective. Gender identity was dreamed up by Money, through queer theory, etc., but physicians blindly went long with it, normalizing and legitimatizing it to the general public, when they should have refused to take part, which would have stopped it cold.
I think the public incorrectly thinks that most medical doctors follow clinical research. The vast majority of MDs are smart people who are good at memorization, but are just following a protocol from a higher authority (professional organization, federal institution, etc). They are much more technicians than scientists. For a long time it has been my experience that the average doctor (including specialists) have very little sense of inquiry into the why and how of a patient's condition, but just look to fit them into a box so they can superficially address their symptoms. Gender distress is no different.
$$$$. Lots of money and votes tied up into this. It's just one of many manufactured social justice campaigns to gain control and also make money. Look into who is donating to these organizations and who profits. The Stryker family, Arkus foundation and, Pritzker has monetary interests. Then they pray on the allies to spread it like wildfire as "good intentions" . People who don't know any better jump onboard and join the new movement. The heavy marketing and total infiltration of our public schools, and government agencies should make anyone extremely skeptical. It's an all out war on our families, kids, women, and freedom of speech, and more. mhttps://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/billionaire-family-pushing-synthetic-sex-identities-ssi-pritzkers
A thoughtful physician friend once noted to me that, in the US, we have been through a collective trauma of major proportions, the full impacts of which are still unfolding. Indeed, as he noted, we have been through three of them—9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and then the pandemic—without, as a society, fully recovering from one when the next one hit. I can’t help but think that the idea of collective trauma is part of the story here. Also, in trying to understand the present moment, including the gender identity phenomenon, I’ve done a lot of reading about various points in history that were particularly tumultuous and where a lot of odd ideas took hold. What I have gleaned is that in each case there was no one cause, but a confluence of variables, quite often including, as one commenter has noted, many people with good intentions who did not realize where their actions might lead. Another thing that seems common to so many of these moments in history is that, whatever the intentions were at the outset, things spun out of control. (This may seem too remote for most, but I found the book Summer of Fire and Blood, about the 16th Century Peasants’ War in Germany, a fascinating example of this.)
The broad pushback to police abuses that occurred in the same quarter-year as the pandemic in response to George Floyd's murder was a moment of intense bulwarking for the left. 2020 was the summer of marches and slogans. Some of its effects were positive and necessary, like holding Derek Chauvin and his fellow officers to account. I do think though that that moment provided gender nonsense enough of a platform to shift the Overton window around it.
Where to even start? I’ve been wanting to write a post on this but here’s the short(er) version.
I think there are three primary groups to blame, and then lots of secondary groups.
Primary:
Autogynephilic males. Maybe not all of them, but a large number of them want there to be more trans people for several reasons. First, it affirms their belief that they are “truly” a woman and always were if they can ensure the existence of trans kids - if other kids are trans that means they too were always girls. Second, it helps advance their goal of being able to use female-only spaces, which is also affirming to them. Third, for some of them the whole point is misogyny - forcing women to lie about what they are, to accept them, and to dominate women in their own spaces is the motivation and is sexually arousing to them. Fourth, a lot of them have some darker sexual proclivities, and get off on the idea of people being sexually tortured or mutilated. There are a few autogynephilic males who are extremely wealthy and have devoted large portions of that wealth toward increasing the numbers of trans people by indoctrinating children and trying to train people’s sexuality through distribution of certain types of porn and erotica that are known to encourage autogynephilia.
The medical industry and those who have a financial stake in it - for pretty obvious reasons. Each trans person who starts medical transition will likely spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of insurance companies’ money over their lifetime.
People trying to bring down western society by sowing division, rendering young people unable to be healthy and productive, and possibly inciting revolutions. This likely includes Iranian, Chinese, and Russian factions.
All of these groups include people who are very skilled at psychological manipulation.
Secondary:
Certain groups of feminists who believe that any acknowledgement that there are any differences at all between males and females makes one complicit in the oppression of women.
Those advocating for extreme positions on sexual freedom such as pedophiles, those who want societal acceptance of polyamory/polygamy, etc., who see the breakdown of all norms and morals around sexuality as positive for acceptance of their cause.
Opportunistic sex traffickers who know that confused kids who can be encouraged to separate from their families and keep secrets from them are easy targets and can make the traffickers money.
Eugenicists who want to ensure autistic people do not reproduce.
Extreme environmentalists who advocate for depopulation and don’t think anyone should reproduce.
Lots and lots of people who don’t know they’re doing anything harmful but have been indoctrinated or latched on to this movement or are too afraid to stand up to it who help spread the belief system, indoctrinate others, and socially punish anyone who expresses a different opinion. This includes the media, medical, mental health, education, publishing, and entertainment industries, as well as some government entities.
Yes, and the "lots and lots of people" - the everywhere-ness of this - is key to the story. I'd add many arts organizations and some "progressive" religious communities to your list.
I wasn't paying attention when gender identity ideology escaped academia and captured minds and then entire institutions. Then came the pandemic, which gave me the opportunity to consume more and different types of news and opinion. Holy Hell!
Hence, I do not know if there ever was a secret summit meeting where trans rights activists indoctrinated almost everyone from the center left to the far fringes and instructed the media and all other gatekeepers to censor even centrist gender critical thought, smear critics as hateful transphobes and reverse victim and oppressor. But that seemed to be the status quo in 2020 when I tuned in.
Since then, I have read pieces in mainstream media such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times that were clearly slanted in favor of the trans side of the culture war. A story in the LA Times about the mother of trans girl volleyball player, a teacher who ran afoul of the school district's ban against boys on girls' teams provides an example. In what felt like a passive-aggressive response to an editor's critique about an oversight, the author informed readers why certain states had enacted such bans. However, she failed to explain bans from a female athlete's point of view, so it came across as if Republican lawmakers were simply being mean to trans people. This biased reporting cannot have been an isolated occurrence.
I also know from experience how resistant the comment screeners at The Washington Post were for so long to any sex-realist ideas that went counter to trans orthodoxy. I submitted many dispassionate, relevant comments that readers never saw. Before I canceled my subscription, some gender critical comments were getting though, but in my experience it was not consistent.
Another relentless source of uncritical support for all things trans is public opinion among liberals, progressives and others on the left. It manifests itself in the form of pro-trans op-ed pieces, readers' enthusiastic approval of such views and the savaging they deliver to commenters who disagree. For an example, look at yesterday's guest essay in Ruth Ben-Ghiat's substack Lucid. It is titled "Trans Woman: Why I Am Leaving the United States
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is representative of a type of liberal intellectual who wears her pro-trans sympathies on her sleeve. While Ben-Ghiat's specialty is study of authoritarian regimes, fascism, propaganda and the defense of democracy, in almost every column she finds a way to raise the alarm about what she views as the rising tide of anti-trans oppression in the US. Sunday's guest column marks a new high in trans hysteria for her franchise. It is hard to say what was worse: the anonymous author's intellectual dishonesty or the readers' credulous and ignorant comments.
It's as important to know the whys of the support for gender ideology and the trans movement as who is promoting them. The Liberal Patriot (TLP) Substack stands out among general purveyors of political punditry because of its gender-critical stance towards the trans phenomenon. It is neither transhphobic nor anti-democratic, nor is it opposed to the Democratic Party. TLP just wants to see Dems abandon the fringe politics that cost them so dearly in 2024, including their uncritical embrace of the trans movement.
To that end, The Liberal Patriot has devoted several pieces to examining the Democratic Party's trans problem. The most recent one, dated March 11 of this year, was titled "Why Democrats Are Struggling on Trans Issues: Part two in a series examining at how the party got derailed on key issues." The essay is important because it contains a list of the reasons Democrats are all in on trans rights. What the piece did not do was offer ways to counter each point. It will be difficult to make much progress until that happens. However, it might make it easier to understand why Dems take positions that seem hard to comprehend.
Many conservatives—and even some moderates and liberals—seem mystified by the Democrats’ staunch support for pro-trans policies. A recent exchange with a TLP reader who was curious about this prompted me to think through the best, good-faith argument for the party’s heretofore positions on these issues. As someone with a very socially liberal peer group and whose own values err on the side of protecting the vulnerable, I think the reasons are pretty straightforward.
Most Democrats see transgender people as a vulnerable minority population in need of protection.
After watching the debates over gay marriage play out across the past several decades, many Democrats have become convinced that conservatives—at least a lot of them—always seem to be in need of a group to pick on. For decades, Democrats will argue, it was black people, then it was gay people, then Muslims, and so on. So, they see no reason to think that resistance toward, or even questions about, transgender and gender-nonconforming people are any different, because these actions are also clearly being taken with nefarious intent.
Relatedly, some see intraparty discussions about the need for moderation on these issues as tantamount to throwing a vulnerable group under the bus. Given the party’s historical commitment to protecting these groups, there can be very little appetite for anything even remotely resembling this.
The number of transgender athletes competing at least at the college level is very small, which reinforces the idea for many Democrats that the right is just looking for someone to bully. Why else would they care about such a small number of people?
Many Democrats prioritize the value of “inclusivity” above most others. They have moral qualms about making anyone feel excluded on the basis of an identity trait that makes them a minority, a sentiment rooted in the historical exclusion of women, black people, gays, and others from public life. This means, in their view, that whether a trans woman (someone born male) participating in women’s sports is “fair” is beside the point because it opens the door to excluding a minority group, which is wrong.
Democrats also believe that the political right has gone overboard on these issues. (Statements supporting the “eradication of transgenderism” surely contribute to this perception, even if those who uttered such statements argue they’re talking about an ideology, not a group of people.) It’s human nature to form solidarity in the face of attacks against a person or group with whom one sympathizes—many Trump supporters likely understand this in the face of years of criticism against him. So, as Democrats perceive attacks against transgender people, their reaction has understandably been to double down on their support for them.
In general, Democrats see the fight for trans rights as an extension of other past civil rights struggles, where they believe they were on the “right side of history” and conservatives were on the wrong side. Most recently, they won the fight over gay rights, and eventually, even many Republicans came around. So, the thinking goes, why would this time be any different?
Aside from positive-oriented moral calculations, there are also negative incentives keeping many Democrats in line on these issues as well. This includes pressure from activist groups who have dangled the threat of primary a challenge over members who deviate from the party line. And it may help explain why Democrats are reticent to even have internal debates about trans issues the way the have with “defund the police” or immigration.
Overall, Democrats sincerely believe their views on these issues are morally good and that their opponents are bad-faith actors. This is undoubtedly a major reason why they have stuck to their guns: a belief that history will ultimately prove them right. But their uncompromising approach on questions of gender identity has caused not just political peril but other problems too.
I read the TLP article a few weeks ago and I think it needs to be amplified much more. The "trans conversation" runs on slogans, catchphrases and reductionist rhetoric. Helen Lewis, mentioned in this article, was just on Blocked and Reported (May 12 2025, "Genius" episode) to describe the post-ruling situation in the UK with nuance. One of the most interesting things about her account is the gap between the goodwill of an overall liberal, live&let-live culture and what is permissible to spell out in law. A fascinating outcome of the UK's move to clarify that transwomen are not women is that they finally have the "space" in the media to explore how transwomen live in society with more candor and precision than where we are in the US. They're even talking about, out of the transfem population, who is and who isn't just some random straight dude who's obviously using women's facilities as a means to intimidate or assault women. UK has not followed its legal ruling with underwear checks on run-of-the-mill transwomen. (Nor has there been an increase in suicides, another scare tactic that seemed threadbare even before the ruling.) I hope we get there before the midterms, but right now we're stuck on AOC-type sloganeering. It feels very primitive and frustrating knowing that the conversation elsewhere has moved on.
The concept of tribal, weaponized, narcissistic, misguided, infantilizing empathy. I imagine so many of us ROGD mothers have former mostly female friends who turned on us when we began to question all of this. Those who won’t read Abigail Shrier‘s book because there’s a quote from Ben Shapiro on it. Yes, the roots of that go far back with the pairing of trans with homosexuality and therefore automatically rejecting anyone who suggests that maybe a lot of these kids aren’t born this way, born in the wrong body. But a whole other force that keeps it going is this hijacked empathy that turns into “malevolent benevolence.” It would be amazing if you had a discussion with one of these moms who has “canceled” so many of us moms.
1.) The rise of the internet and, particularly, Tumblr. 2.) Gays winning marriage equality so money flowed to gay groups to transition, so to speak, to trans. Bilek is right. 3. A lot of people - doctors and Big Pharma seeing a pay day. 4. The culture of changing your body. Nip Tuck anyone? 5. Pornhub and AGP guys. 6. Liberals having shame over late to accept gays so rushing to accept trans and not seeing the issue is quite different. 7. The media/ liberals having the same confusion as 6.
I'd put climate and post-scarcity capitalism on that list, too: a sense of general malaise from living in a society that doesn't really need you, and fears a grim future but not badly enough for change to come from the top.
This list! Yes. All of it. And more. A perfect storm. You bring clarity to my mind as I desperately try to make sense of this horrific mess. SO MANY ASPECTS to it that its hard to pin down. I hesitate to say, this but I need to make need one of Kamala’s now cringe worthy Venn diagrams!
I think that the drag subculture had an outsized role in the acceptance of men impersonating women in the wider culture. Other, relatively obscure medical people might have played a role, but the autogynophile philosophy justifying transsexualism was developed by people like the Canadian performer Nina Arsenault and American writer Andrew Andrea Long Chu and gained popular acceptance via long-running shows like Ru Paul's Drag Races, which accustomed the public to view extreme misogynistic portrayals of women as harmless, humorous, hijicks. Long Chu, Arsenault and others like them, experience their expropriation of a female identity as a way to rationalize their urge to be the object of desire by a man who will ravage, penetrate and degrade them, which is what they imagine the role of women to be. While many don't seem to want to acknowledge this, early in the phenomenon of transgenderism, we see drag queen performers emerge from their smoke-filled, boozy, sex-themed clubs to suddenly appear as performers in children’s educational and recreational spaces providing Drag Queen Story Hours to familiarize kids with the joys of transsexualism, cross-dressing, and bizarre, degrading satires of women. One could never have worked without the other: Drag culture facilitating Trans Culture. Drag served to pave the way for popular acceptance and normalization of drag/trans, and once they got their foot in the door they exploited every means possible to expand their reach and enforce their hold. The rest is history.
There are so many currents contributing to the capture of culture by transgenderism. Certainly helpful in gaining trans a foothold was the promotion of the unscientific and anti-evolutionary idea pushed by some that women were exactly the same as men. So convinced were these people, mostly women, that the only way women could achieve justice would be to claim that women were actually men with a few different embellishments. Another contributing factor is the media/press which has censored all of the incredible violence perpetrated by trans and kept silent on the irreparable damage done by medical practitioners both psychological and physical. Also to blame are those doctors doing that damage for enormous profits. Another factor, little mentioned, contributing to the support of transgenderism, is the whole strategy of "divide and conquer" long used by political parties and corporate oligarchs to keep the populace at each other's throats rather than having them turn on the one percent or ten percent at the top. So they use means like men against women, black against white against Asians, gay against straight, citizens against immigrants, working-class against professional-class and entrench such tactics in some D.E.I. programs.
I want to know who was in the room and what was said at HRC the moment they decided to pivot to trans. What were the brainstorming sessions like at gay rights NGOs when they committed themselves to marketing horrible destructive ideas about “trans rights”?
I wrote a wee bit about that in regards to ENDA—they had some residual guilt!
I’d love to know that too.
Tim Gill since the early 1990's.
As much as I want to find the lead villain in all of this, I think what's happened with gender medicine is the ultimate example of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." I think these ideas spread by really well-intentioned people in the beginning. I, myself, created a 90 minute documentary 20 years ago about a transman's "journey." The goal truly was to bring greater acceptance for this tiny minority of trans people. Just to end truly hateful discrimination against them. But when I look back now on the story we told, it was basically the story of a gender non conforming girl who was terrified of being gay and sought solace in this new identity. How many parents of young gender non conforming girls saw that film and thought... oh this is my kid. I have no idea. I can assure you with full certainty that nobody involved with that film (including the main subject) had any idea of what was to come with "youth gender medicine." Are we villains in this story? Maybe. But I hope not. Our intentions were good but we set some of those pavers on that road to hell. How many people in the professions of therapy, medicine, education, non profits, media, etc set just one or two pavers? I think the villains capitalized on it,and exploited it; but the road itself was paved by so many do-gooders, who truly knew not what they were doing. And once the road was paved it became really hard to stop so many from running down it.
I really appreciate your observations, which, to me, make a whole lot of sense.
Well said; I've made similar comments about the Covid response. Lots of good intentions leading to lots of collateral damage, vastly outweighing any possible positive effects. Good intentions also serve as a justification for authoritarianism, lending legitimacy to lockdowns and mandates, as well as to the suppression of dissent similar to what we see with the trans movement.
On the gender-dysphoric kids front, it started with the Dutch researchers in the 1990s and then was expanded to the US through Norman Spack. Other early champions include Johanna Olson-Kennedy and Scott Leibovitz. Although those two have since splintered. He's more about moderation and she is opposed to anything but the mildest gatekeeping. A big shift was the Obama admin's 2016 change to section 1557 of the ACA, which opened the door for wide coverage of gender-transition treatment for kids. The availability of these treatments stoked demand and then a feedback loop as more kids heard about these treatments and more doctors saw an opportunity to open pediatric gender clinics. Activists such as Andrea James and Alejandra Caraballo as well as institutions such as GLAAD have policed the media, seeking to scare away critics. That has helped maintain the illusion in the public that these treatments are safe and effective and well studied and are not controversial among experts.
Add to this: the introduction of smart phones (precise year?), the invention of Youtube & the publication of the Yogyakarta Principles & lobbying based on them, and finally: the role of higher education in popularizing Queer Theory and the spread, via "diversity and inclusivity" principles into "Social and Emotional Learning" in high schools and elementary schools. There's a broad interplay of these forces that created the perfect storm.
So much is still the wish not to be same sex attracted, and wool pulled over your eyes by those who make so much money from these supposedly "painless, necessary" body modifications now encapsulated in the captured language, "embodiment goals."
One group that needs more focus is lesbians who transitioned. They enabled the AGPs and were the conduits for bringing gender into gay and lesbian rights organizations. Some of the worst activists are Ft"M"s. Shannon Minter and Stephen Whittle come to mind as earlier ones. But there is Jake Payne (smeared Zucker and I am assuming HSTS), Evan Urquhart, etc. Many like Jamie Dodger and Cayden Carter (who wound up in a colostomy bag) pushed all this on Youtube. Mentally unwell same-sex attracted women, they've done a ton of damage. Maybe not at the top of the list, but at the top of my list.
That's true. They are never mentioned. They are not victims.
https://www.genderdissent.com/post/manufacturing-authority-the-case-of-aaron-holly-devor
Certainly humans have always been in the business of "solving" (escaping, ignoring, avoiding, distracting, etc) the "problem" of emotional pain. Enter a concrete pathway; a to-do list, presented as legitimate medicine, as a possible solution for chronic, intense pain. Enter a conceptual pathway (the gendered soul) that offers a concordant solution for shame (one-size-fits all pathway out of the sexual shame of agp, sexual abuse, and/or same-sex attraction). All of this in the context of a social justice framework for suffering (pain) where opting in to oppression is a badge of honor and legitimacy and transition is a social justice action. All of this in the context of a parenting framework that has pendulum swung from 'seen, not heard' to centering childrens needs without any developmental consideration for the difference between need and desire and re-writing the existence of pain, discomfort, sorrow and limitations as indicators of problems that my be ameliorated by parents vs. as inevitable, often random or unjust, human experiences. And all of this in an (admirable) context of the popular Western narrative: "humans as a species don't seem to be doing so great so we must change how we are doing things" (meta problem solving).
Very strong and thorough analysis; the perfect storm as it were.
I keep coming back to physicians' culpability in all this. If so many physicians had not unquestioningly gone along with gender identity nonsense rather than demanding scientific proof of gender identity for one thing, as well as proof of the safety and efficacy of the drugs and surgeries, this scandal would not be such a big one. It took buy-in by the medical establishment to get this thing going, to grow it big, and it is required to keep it going. These girls can't slice off their own breasts. Boys can't remove their own testicles. Teens can't write their own prescriptions. Physicians failed to ask questions and now are routinely providing so-called "gender-affirming care" even though there's no proof that it is safe or effective. Gender identity was dreamed up by Money, through queer theory, etc., but physicians blindly went long with it, normalizing and legitimatizing it to the general public, when they should have refused to take part, which would have stopped it cold.
I think the public incorrectly thinks that most medical doctors follow clinical research. The vast majority of MDs are smart people who are good at memorization, but are just following a protocol from a higher authority (professional organization, federal institution, etc). They are much more technicians than scientists. For a long time it has been my experience that the average doctor (including specialists) have very little sense of inquiry into the why and how of a patient's condition, but just look to fit them into a box so they can superficially address their symptoms. Gender distress is no different.
and the motivations of the doctors? ... money, lucrative careers.
With the kindest of intentions, I would suggest changing the title to "Whose Fault Is It" before publishing.
That's an emergency! No kindness! That's my second time doing that. It's just from fatigue, but, jeez, thank you for telling me! Totally missed it.
It's still in the illustration...
That was AI. But I'll tell it it was wrong!
Oh, I thought you had to put the text into it yourself for AI to generate an image. Sorry, I'm a luddite when it comes to AI tools.
You're welcome! Whew, now I can focus on the content!
Thank you!
$$$$. Lots of money and votes tied up into this. It's just one of many manufactured social justice campaigns to gain control and also make money. Look into who is donating to these organizations and who profits. The Stryker family, Arkus foundation and, Pritzker has monetary interests. Then they pray on the allies to spread it like wildfire as "good intentions" . People who don't know any better jump onboard and join the new movement. The heavy marketing and total infiltration of our public schools, and government agencies should make anyone extremely skeptical. It's an all out war on our families, kids, women, and freedom of speech, and more. mhttps://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/billionaire-family-pushing-synthetic-sex-identities-ssi-pritzkers
Here are two more articles also by Jennifer Bilek to round out the trans lobbyist chronicles:
The Stryker family and their lobbyist group Arcus:
https://firstthings.com/the-billionaires-behind-the-lgbt-movement/
Who exactly is Martin(e) Rothblatt:
https://uncommongroundmedia.com/martine-rothblatt-a-founding-father-of-the-transgender-empire/
A thoughtful physician friend once noted to me that, in the US, we have been through a collective trauma of major proportions, the full impacts of which are still unfolding. Indeed, as he noted, we have been through three of them—9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, and then the pandemic—without, as a society, fully recovering from one when the next one hit. I can’t help but think that the idea of collective trauma is part of the story here. Also, in trying to understand the present moment, including the gender identity phenomenon, I’ve done a lot of reading about various points in history that were particularly tumultuous and where a lot of odd ideas took hold. What I have gleaned is that in each case there was no one cause, but a confluence of variables, quite often including, as one commenter has noted, many people with good intentions who did not realize where their actions might lead. Another thing that seems common to so many of these moments in history is that, whatever the intentions were at the outset, things spun out of control. (This may seem too remote for most, but I found the book Summer of Fire and Blood, about the 16th Century Peasants’ War in Germany, a fascinating example of this.)
The broad pushback to police abuses that occurred in the same quarter-year as the pandemic in response to George Floyd's murder was a moment of intense bulwarking for the left. 2020 was the summer of marches and slogans. Some of its effects were positive and necessary, like holding Derek Chauvin and his fellow officers to account. I do think though that that moment provided gender nonsense enough of a platform to shift the Overton window around it.
Where to even start? I’ve been wanting to write a post on this but here’s the short(er) version.
I think there are three primary groups to blame, and then lots of secondary groups.
Primary:
Autogynephilic males. Maybe not all of them, but a large number of them want there to be more trans people for several reasons. First, it affirms their belief that they are “truly” a woman and always were if they can ensure the existence of trans kids - if other kids are trans that means they too were always girls. Second, it helps advance their goal of being able to use female-only spaces, which is also affirming to them. Third, for some of them the whole point is misogyny - forcing women to lie about what they are, to accept them, and to dominate women in their own spaces is the motivation and is sexually arousing to them. Fourth, a lot of them have some darker sexual proclivities, and get off on the idea of people being sexually tortured or mutilated. There are a few autogynephilic males who are extremely wealthy and have devoted large portions of that wealth toward increasing the numbers of trans people by indoctrinating children and trying to train people’s sexuality through distribution of certain types of porn and erotica that are known to encourage autogynephilia.
The medical industry and those who have a financial stake in it - for pretty obvious reasons. Each trans person who starts medical transition will likely spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of insurance companies’ money over their lifetime.
People trying to bring down western society by sowing division, rendering young people unable to be healthy and productive, and possibly inciting revolutions. This likely includes Iranian, Chinese, and Russian factions.
All of these groups include people who are very skilled at psychological manipulation.
Secondary:
Certain groups of feminists who believe that any acknowledgement that there are any differences at all between males and females makes one complicit in the oppression of women.
Those advocating for extreme positions on sexual freedom such as pedophiles, those who want societal acceptance of polyamory/polygamy, etc., who see the breakdown of all norms and morals around sexuality as positive for acceptance of their cause.
Opportunistic sex traffickers who know that confused kids who can be encouraged to separate from their families and keep secrets from them are easy targets and can make the traffickers money.
Eugenicists who want to ensure autistic people do not reproduce.
Extreme environmentalists who advocate for depopulation and don’t think anyone should reproduce.
Lots and lots of people who don’t know they’re doing anything harmful but have been indoctrinated or latched on to this movement or are too afraid to stand up to it who help spread the belief system, indoctrinate others, and socially punish anyone who expresses a different opinion. This includes the media, medical, mental health, education, publishing, and entertainment industries, as well as some government entities.
Yes, and the "lots and lots of people" - the everywhere-ness of this - is key to the story. I'd add many arts organizations and some "progressive" religious communities to your list.
I wasn't paying attention when gender identity ideology escaped academia and captured minds and then entire institutions. Then came the pandemic, which gave me the opportunity to consume more and different types of news and opinion. Holy Hell!
Hence, I do not know if there ever was a secret summit meeting where trans rights activists indoctrinated almost everyone from the center left to the far fringes and instructed the media and all other gatekeepers to censor even centrist gender critical thought, smear critics as hateful transphobes and reverse victim and oppressor. But that seemed to be the status quo in 2020 when I tuned in.
Since then, I have read pieces in mainstream media such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times that were clearly slanted in favor of the trans side of the culture war. A story in the LA Times about the mother of trans girl volleyball player, a teacher who ran afoul of the school district's ban against boys on girls' teams provides an example. In what felt like a passive-aggressive response to an editor's critique about an oversight, the author informed readers why certain states had enacted such bans. However, she failed to explain bans from a female athlete's point of view, so it came across as if Republican lawmakers were simply being mean to trans people. This biased reporting cannot have been an isolated occurrence.
I also know from experience how resistant the comment screeners at The Washington Post were for so long to any sex-realist ideas that went counter to trans orthodoxy. I submitted many dispassionate, relevant comments that readers never saw. Before I canceled my subscription, some gender critical comments were getting though, but in my experience it was not consistent.
Another relentless source of uncritical support for all things trans is public opinion among liberals, progressives and others on the left. It manifests itself in the form of pro-trans op-ed pieces, readers' enthusiastic approval of such views and the savaging they deliver to commenters who disagree. For an example, look at yesterday's guest essay in Ruth Ben-Ghiat's substack Lucid. It is titled "Trans Woman: Why I Am Leaving the United States
The risk of persecution is too high to remain." https://lucid.substack.com/p/trans-woman-why-i-am-leaving-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=300941&post_id=163177548&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=8bzqv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is representative of a type of liberal intellectual who wears her pro-trans sympathies on her sleeve. While Ben-Ghiat's specialty is study of authoritarian regimes, fascism, propaganda and the defense of democracy, in almost every column she finds a way to raise the alarm about what she views as the rising tide of anti-trans oppression in the US. Sunday's guest column marks a new high in trans hysteria for her franchise. It is hard to say what was worse: the anonymous author's intellectual dishonesty or the readers' credulous and ignorant comments.
It's as important to know the whys of the support for gender ideology and the trans movement as who is promoting them. The Liberal Patriot (TLP) Substack stands out among general purveyors of political punditry because of its gender-critical stance towards the trans phenomenon. It is neither transhphobic nor anti-democratic, nor is it opposed to the Democratic Party. TLP just wants to see Dems abandon the fringe politics that cost them so dearly in 2024, including their uncritical embrace of the trans movement.
To that end, The Liberal Patriot has devoted several pieces to examining the Democratic Party's trans problem. The most recent one, dated March 11 of this year, was titled "Why Democrats Are Struggling on Trans Issues: Part two in a series examining at how the party got derailed on key issues." The essay is important because it contains a list of the reasons Democrats are all in on trans rights. What the piece did not do was offer ways to counter each point. It will be difficult to make much progress until that happens. However, it might make it easier to understand why Dems take positions that seem hard to comprehend.
Here is the relevant part of the publication. The entire piece is behind a paywall at: https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/why-democrats-are-struggling-on-trans
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Many conservatives—and even some moderates and liberals—seem mystified by the Democrats’ staunch support for pro-trans policies. A recent exchange with a TLP reader who was curious about this prompted me to think through the best, good-faith argument for the party’s heretofore positions on these issues. As someone with a very socially liberal peer group and whose own values err on the side of protecting the vulnerable, I think the reasons are pretty straightforward.
Most Democrats see transgender people as a vulnerable minority population in need of protection.
After watching the debates over gay marriage play out across the past several decades, many Democrats have become convinced that conservatives—at least a lot of them—always seem to be in need of a group to pick on. For decades, Democrats will argue, it was black people, then it was gay people, then Muslims, and so on. So, they see no reason to think that resistance toward, or even questions about, transgender and gender-nonconforming people are any different, because these actions are also clearly being taken with nefarious intent.
Relatedly, some see intraparty discussions about the need for moderation on these issues as tantamount to throwing a vulnerable group under the bus. Given the party’s historical commitment to protecting these groups, there can be very little appetite for anything even remotely resembling this.
The number of transgender athletes competing at least at the college level is very small, which reinforces the idea for many Democrats that the right is just looking for someone to bully. Why else would they care about such a small number of people?
Many Democrats prioritize the value of “inclusivity” above most others. They have moral qualms about making anyone feel excluded on the basis of an identity trait that makes them a minority, a sentiment rooted in the historical exclusion of women, black people, gays, and others from public life. This means, in their view, that whether a trans woman (someone born male) participating in women’s sports is “fair” is beside the point because it opens the door to excluding a minority group, which is wrong.
Democrats also believe that the political right has gone overboard on these issues. (Statements supporting the “eradication of transgenderism” surely contribute to this perception, even if those who uttered such statements argue they’re talking about an ideology, not a group of people.) It’s human nature to form solidarity in the face of attacks against a person or group with whom one sympathizes—many Trump supporters likely understand this in the face of years of criticism against him. So, as Democrats perceive attacks against transgender people, their reaction has understandably been to double down on their support for them.
In general, Democrats see the fight for trans rights as an extension of other past civil rights struggles, where they believe they were on the “right side of history” and conservatives were on the wrong side. Most recently, they won the fight over gay rights, and eventually, even many Republicans came around. So, the thinking goes, why would this time be any different?
Aside from positive-oriented moral calculations, there are also negative incentives keeping many Democrats in line on these issues as well. This includes pressure from activist groups who have dangled the threat of primary a challenge over members who deviate from the party line. And it may help explain why Democrats are reticent to even have internal debates about trans issues the way the have with “defund the police” or immigration.
Overall, Democrats sincerely believe their views on these issues are morally good and that their opponents are bad-faith actors. This is undoubtedly a major reason why they have stuck to their guns: a belief that history will ultimately prove them right. But their uncompromising approach on questions of gender identity has caused not just political peril but other problems too.
I read the TLP article a few weeks ago and I think it needs to be amplified much more. The "trans conversation" runs on slogans, catchphrases and reductionist rhetoric. Helen Lewis, mentioned in this article, was just on Blocked and Reported (May 12 2025, "Genius" episode) to describe the post-ruling situation in the UK with nuance. One of the most interesting things about her account is the gap between the goodwill of an overall liberal, live&let-live culture and what is permissible to spell out in law. A fascinating outcome of the UK's move to clarify that transwomen are not women is that they finally have the "space" in the media to explore how transwomen live in society with more candor and precision than where we are in the US. They're even talking about, out of the transfem population, who is and who isn't just some random straight dude who's obviously using women's facilities as a means to intimidate or assault women. UK has not followed its legal ruling with underwear checks on run-of-the-mill transwomen. (Nor has there been an increase in suicides, another scare tactic that seemed threadbare even before the ruling.) I hope we get there before the midterms, but right now we're stuck on AOC-type sloganeering. It feels very primitive and frustrating knowing that the conversation elsewhere has moved on.
The concept of tribal, weaponized, narcissistic, misguided, infantilizing empathy. I imagine so many of us ROGD mothers have former mostly female friends who turned on us when we began to question all of this. Those who won’t read Abigail Shrier‘s book because there’s a quote from Ben Shapiro on it. Yes, the roots of that go far back with the pairing of trans with homosexuality and therefore automatically rejecting anyone who suggests that maybe a lot of these kids aren’t born this way, born in the wrong body. But a whole other force that keeps it going is this hijacked empathy that turns into “malevolent benevolence.” It would be amazing if you had a discussion with one of these moms who has “canceled” so many of us moms.
1.) The rise of the internet and, particularly, Tumblr. 2.) Gays winning marriage equality so money flowed to gay groups to transition, so to speak, to trans. Bilek is right. 3. A lot of people - doctors and Big Pharma seeing a pay day. 4. The culture of changing your body. Nip Tuck anyone? 5. Pornhub and AGP guys. 6. Liberals having shame over late to accept gays so rushing to accept trans and not seeing the issue is quite different. 7. The media/ liberals having the same confusion as 6.
Good question.
Here are some possibles:
Affirming providers
"Me too" and growing up female
The digital age
Peter Pan syndrome
COVID lockdowns.
Social contagion.
March of Dimes Syndrome (NGOs serching for a new mission)
It was always here-fear of coming out.
The looping effect (trendy psychiatric diagnoses).
Conflation of gay and trans
Autogynaphylia (boys)
Post Modernism
Social media
Biomedical technology
Adolescent mental health crisis
Scientific group think
Media group think
Consumer oriented health care logic
The Dutch Protocol
Progressive too gentle parenting
Pornography
Sissy porn (boys)
Institutions crumbling
Internalized homophobia
Teenage rebellion
Economics-Big Pharm
Of course a lot of these are not causes but accelerants. Wish someone would do a path analysis.
I'd put climate and post-scarcity capitalism on that list, too: a sense of general malaise from living in a society that doesn't really need you, and fears a grim future but not badly enough for change to come from the top.
This list! Yes. All of it. And more. A perfect storm. You bring clarity to my mind as I desperately try to make sense of this horrific mess. SO MANY ASPECTS to it that its hard to pin down. I hesitate to say, this but I need to make need one of Kamala’s now cringe worthy Venn diagrams!
I think that the drag subculture had an outsized role in the acceptance of men impersonating women in the wider culture. Other, relatively obscure medical people might have played a role, but the autogynophile philosophy justifying transsexualism was developed by people like the Canadian performer Nina Arsenault and American writer Andrew Andrea Long Chu and gained popular acceptance via long-running shows like Ru Paul's Drag Races, which accustomed the public to view extreme misogynistic portrayals of women as harmless, humorous, hijicks. Long Chu, Arsenault and others like them, experience their expropriation of a female identity as a way to rationalize their urge to be the object of desire by a man who will ravage, penetrate and degrade them, which is what they imagine the role of women to be. While many don't seem to want to acknowledge this, early in the phenomenon of transgenderism, we see drag queen performers emerge from their smoke-filled, boozy, sex-themed clubs to suddenly appear as performers in children’s educational and recreational spaces providing Drag Queen Story Hours to familiarize kids with the joys of transsexualism, cross-dressing, and bizarre, degrading satires of women. One could never have worked without the other: Drag culture facilitating Trans Culture. Drag served to pave the way for popular acceptance and normalization of drag/trans, and once they got their foot in the door they exploited every means possible to expand their reach and enforce their hold. The rest is history.
There are so many currents contributing to the capture of culture by transgenderism. Certainly helpful in gaining trans a foothold was the promotion of the unscientific and anti-evolutionary idea pushed by some that women were exactly the same as men. So convinced were these people, mostly women, that the only way women could achieve justice would be to claim that women were actually men with a few different embellishments. Another contributing factor is the media/press which has censored all of the incredible violence perpetrated by trans and kept silent on the irreparable damage done by medical practitioners both psychological and physical. Also to blame are those doctors doing that damage for enormous profits. Another factor, little mentioned, contributing to the support of transgenderism, is the whole strategy of "divide and conquer" long used by political parties and corporate oligarchs to keep the populace at each other's throats rather than having them turn on the one percent or ten percent at the top. So they use means like men against women, black against white against Asians, gay against straight, citizens against immigrants, working-class against professional-class and entrench such tactics in some D.E.I. programs.
All of us who let the "no debate" approach, tribe mentality decision making take precedence over asking questions.
The mainstream press for buying and pushing the argument that all discussion was political.
Anyone who decided to care more about the identity of the person providing information than whether the information was true.
But also, how do we go forward? Whose fault is it that the facts are not coming out now?