No one practicing, teaching about or reporting on gender-affirmative care, or gender identity, should continue until...
A declaration, and a dilemma
I have some longer pieces on the way, but I have something I want to share right now—especially with the people who are reading my Substack because they are sure they disagree with me and are keeping tabs on my arguments for the dossier of hateful transphobic bigots they keep. I want to speak to you directly because your refusal to listen is the reason we are locked in this culture war. Republicans may be making it worse in their tactics, but the blood is on the Democrats’ (and media-makers’) hands.
The point of BROADview is to create materials for liberals to share with each other, to speak to the people who are getting only a sliver of the full story. If you ignore the stories of those being hurt, as Democrats and the media have been doing, you push ahead with the narrative that gender-affirming care is life-saving and trans kids are under attack.
I’ve spent years now interviewing people who lost years of their lives, or even body parts, to what amounts to medical malpractice, trying to get their stories in the mainstream media so my own people could be properly educated. But after spending several days in the same room with dozens of those people—not just taking testimony over Zoom or the phone—and feeling the air crackling with their trauma, it is hard to maintain this reasonable, nuanced tone.
Everyone supporting or practicing gender medicine has to pause and listen. I believe that no one practicing, teaching about or reporting on gender-affirmative care, or gender identity, should continue until:
They listen to detransitioners—lots of them.
They read the systematic evidence reviews.
They understand the shifting cohorts of young people seeking “sex changes.”
They have a firm understanding of the history of the concept of gender itself, and of gender identity.
They screen all clients not just about their histories but their influences, through peers, social media, books, and other educational materials, and understand how kids are learning about both gender and gender identity today.
They read original papers they’ve been told are inappropriate or transphobic, particularly those from Lisa Littman.
They listen to many episodes of Gender: A Wider Lens.
They read media articles from multiple political perspectives on the same subject.
They read Helen Joyce’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality and Hannah Barnes’ Time to Think.
If you have more to add to the List of Demands, please add in the comments. I’ll leave them open for everyone.
I would put THIS Substack on the list. In fact I always recommend it when discussing gender issues with friends. Lisa is so nuanced and empathetic in her writing. There are a few other sources that I follow that have accurate information but the tone is angry or confrontational in a way that makes it easier to dismiss as “transphobic.” Lisa makes it clear she is trying to get at the truth while still being respectful of all the various points of view in the debate.
I would like to see reporters covering the issue of gender care for young people read Hannah Barnes’ Time to Think and the lessons learned from the rise and fall of the Tavistock gender clinic. In publications like the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, there is no acknowledgment of developments in the UK and few if any references to changing policies in other European countries. Inconvenient facts are ignored or explained away.