On Jamie Reed's Extraordinary Testimony
And why Democrats need to take heed
Yesterday, the Free Press published what is probably the best piece I’ve ever read on youth gender medicine in America—and I include everything I’ve ever written in that assessment.
Jamie Reed, formerly a case manager at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, detailed the “morally and medically appalling” care that children and adolescents with gender dysphoria, or who identify as trans, have received there. The lack of any detailed protocol. The way we are creating a generation of young people with intersex conditions by way of medical interventions. The recklessness of affirmation-above-all. Reed captured what many of us have been saying—what many parents and detransitioners have reported—but through a personal, insider lens that adds gravitas and painful, moving detail.
Go read it for yourself, please, and then forward it to, well, everyone, but especially to your representatives and leaders in the Democratic party, who have so far ignored the parents and detransitioners, and heterodox journalists like myself. Maybe Reed, a progressive lefty married to a trans man, is someone they can finally listen to.
This is not a new plea from me. My project has always been about getting the left and liberals to wake up and participate in understanding the truth about the science of youth gender medicine, and what children and families are really going through. I have never endorsed any laws or policies. I have never condemned or denied the existence of trans people, or their right, as adults, to change their bodies or identities. I’ve suggested a bipartisan commission to gather all the information on youth transition in America, so that good laws and policies can follow. We cannot be truth seekers with blinders on.
Last night, Reed spoke on Zoom with Free Press editor Emily Yoffe and Reed’s lawyer, Vernadette Broyles (whom I interviewed here). Reed’s testimony was extraordinary, especially when she talked about the powerful intervention of social transition—a change announced in schools, often in legal documents, to relatives, a big hoopla. It’s not easy to then say, “Oh, this was a phase. I didn’t mean it.” An investment had been made, which often then leads to medical interventions, even when they’re not indicated or warranted. She spoke of the low quality of research (which I detailed yesterday), the kids with poor mental health rushed through a medical protocol not designed for them.
This piece, and Reed’s testimony, should wake the Democrats and the left up. And yet, so far Republicans are the ones crowing about it. So many people on the left are afraid to speak up, but we have arrived at the point where silence is complicity.
Write to your politicians. Tell your school principal how you really feel. Send articles to your friends, and tell them you’re willing to listen to their reactions. Beg journalists and politicians to stop painting objection as hate and understand that children and their families are getting gravely injured, that we need the whole story to be told.
I’m sorry, my fellow libs. They will own us on this, if we don’t own up to what’s going wrong.
The main problem for left of center politicians is that individuals like Rachel Levine have invented a lexicon of captured language. We hear "trans-gender" instead of cross-sex ideation. We hear "transition" instead of "schedule of hormones injections or pills culminating in irreversible surgeries,"
We hear that adults who do all of the above on a shockingly close calendar are happy with the results for the rest of their lives. We do not hear that Davina Anne Gabriel, an early cross-sex ideating man and loud advocate for men to attend a women's music fest, (Mich Fest) detransitioned and committed suicide a few months later. He wrote a manifesto of regrets "I regret it all. All transsexualism is sociological and not biological. I regret it all. I would not do it again." This he gave to friends to be read at memorials. Where was the news report on that death, in early 2016, of an activist who had harassed many, many women trying to protect female only spaces? There's a huge machine, promoting the opposite narrative to the truth we read here. The kids are going to need this truth even more than elected politicians. Davina A Gabriel originated the term "transphobia" in 1989.
How do we get the left to listen? When I talk with liberals/democrats (and until the midterms I have always voted a straight Democrat ticket), they all seem to have versions of the same response: they immediately agree it is a social contagion; they’ve believed it was a fad or a trend for a long time; all of these kids aren’t really trans; kids are being rushed into this; there needs to be more nuance; they’re afraid to say anything and it’s wrong people are made to feel afraid. They believe there are people being harmed by this. But they also know someone who is trans and that person told them they knew they were trans or wanted to be the opposite sex from their earliest childhood memories and now they feel so much better now that they’ve transitioned, and they believe and care about this person. They also don’t want to sound, talk like, or seen in any way associated with anything being said about this issue that comes from republicans, even the parts they agree with, because they believe the Republican messaging comes from a place of hate even if they ultimately share many of the same opinions (Trump’s recent speech on this issue will be a huge obstacle to overcome). There’s a LOT of inner conflict there and I don’t think we can make any progress until we find a way to address all those concerns and inner conflicts they’re dealing with and I don’t know where to start.