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Interesting to me that Lisa asked for comments from people who felt they had been complicit and how that affected them, and the posts so far seem to be from people outside that perspective. As the parent of a young adult who is now taking exogenous testosterone, I do fall into that category, and I suspect I am not alone in being afraid to post here because we are afraid of a pile-on of blame. So let me say right now I am not interested in anyone’s comments about what my perspective should be: I know my situation better than anyone, I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on it, and I’m comfortable with my current thinking and actions. My child struggled with gender throughout adolescence, and certainly had all of the external influences that we are all so familiar with: schools, the medical professionals, the Internet, peers. Went off to college and started T at the beginning of freshman year. If I had to do all over again, I might do things differently. I don’t know that I made bad decisions given the information I had and the external factors that were not under my control (a global pandemic for example). One interesting reflection: the 20/20 hindsight, the wanting to undo the past, makes it more difficult for me to accept my child’s current path, and hence adds a lot of complication to our current relationship. Being at peace with my own past decisions, imperfect though they may have been, allows me to be more at peace with my child’s decisions as well (imperfect though they may be). That peace about the past doesn’t mean I’m not worried about my adult child, but it does allow me to have a more balanced perspective on my current parenting role, and its limitations.

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Thanks for sharing, Mina. I don't want you to be afraid to post here—I don't want the pile on. I have been getting some notes saying people feel like it's too one-sided and the point was nuance. I don't know how to shift that other than to say: I WANT TO HEAR YOUR PERSPECTIVE and defend your right to share it. And I think prioritizing the relationship with your kid is paramount. So does that make you complicit? I don't know. For me, I felt like I was actually withholding the truth from the public, and I couldn't take it. That's so different from putting some things aside to stay connected to your child.

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Are you saying you have a child who identifies as trans? In "Tomboy" you said one daughter was more of a tomboy.

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Hi Mina. Psychiatrist here. You are not absolutely not to blame. Even the Munchausen’s moms who proclaim their effeminate sons trans at the age of 3 are not to blame. We are to blame. The medical community. The buck should have stopped with us. We are the ones responsible for propagating medical scandals. There is a good solid medical scandal every 15-20 years and yet, we never see it coming until the public rightly revolts.

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I attempted to post my story early this morning but apparently didn’t hit the correct button! Followed APA guidelines when my 13-year-old made the announcement, initially took her to affirming clinicians, gave permission for social transition in high school, exposed her to sexuality curriculum at UU church that taught about being born in the wrong body, etc.

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Thanks for saying this, Ann. How do you feel about this now? I mean, are we complicit if we don't know that we're walking the wrong path? Genuine question!

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The definition is "being involved in wrong doing." Going back to my Lutheran roots, we sin to some degree as part of being human. There are only degrees to which we can achieve "right doing," and yes, we are complicit when we choose to "go with the flow" even when we do know we're joining in with "wrong doing." There are various reasons that we fall short of the mark that aren't always either/or decisions. How much of protest was I going to put up when the high school counselor pushed me to erase my daughter's legal name from her academic record after I was told that she was traumatized by a fire drill roll call? Was I going to sign off on "M" on her driver's license when it wasn't that meaningful, being that her female name and face remained on the license? How much of an advocate was I going to be at appointments that she be called by her chosen name and pronouns? Ultimately, every decision I made after my gut reaction of "this can't be true" when she told me that she was male was a participation in "wrong doing" by abdicating my authority as a parent who knew my child and instead went along with bad guidance from "the experts." However, my gut also told me that this was a phase that would play itself out like any other phase through which she and countless other adolescents had travelled, and that pushing back against her identification would drive her more into it. I was in denial about the power of social transitioning. I still don't know what the solution is, though, other than transplanting a child out of their support system and somehow having no access to the internet and to mainstream culture, which has been successful for some parents. Here I stand complicit.

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The image that comes to my mind is that you are standing in the water and a huge powerful wave comes along and pushes you along with it. How much of that is complicity and how much of that is being pushed by overwhelming force?

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Beautifully stated. Thank you.

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I think there are and have been many types of complicity, and the healing would depend on what type was present and what role you played (parent, provider, medical administrator, journalist, NGO employee, activist).

There are those who went along assuming they were getting good information, but accepted the information at face value and did not question. The ignorant.

There are those who knew something was off but were afraid to speak up to due to concerns about reputation, career, cancelling. The timid.

There were those who saw themselves on the cutting edge of a brave new way of living and pushed the ideology onto others. The false visionaries.

There were those who had sunk costs-reputational, financial, intellectual, emotional, knew at some level they had erred but could not reverse course without loss of status. The committed.

There were those who had transitioned themselves, and needed the world to assent as a way of reinforcing their own decision. The doubters.

There were those who saw the trend as a financial/reputational opportunity and exploited it-the opportunists.

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Beautifully put!

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I think a lot of complicity starts out as ignorance. When my son told me of a ‘trans’ classmate whose parents were not supportive, I sympathized with that struggling teen. I had assumed that teen had gotten therapy, discovered they were among the rare number of humans whose discomfort within their own bodies was pathological to the point that they needed intervention. I further assumed that the parents were unaccepting, just as we’d all heard stories of parents unaccepting of gay children.

Then my own son suddenly went “trans” his senior year in high school. And I fell down the rabbit hole trying to find him help to understand why he was uncomfortable in his own body. Not that I needed help to see why he wanted to escape from himself so badly. He was the typical target - ADHD, on the spectrum, ostracized and bullied because he didn’t understand social norms and didn’t fit in, bullied for being “gay” although he’d had no relationships and had expressed no sexual preference as yet. But when he turned “trans”, he had a whole school complicit in not informing me and celebrating him and his “bravery”. And I could find no therapy to help that wasn’t affirming him and scorning me for wanting more discovery on why he felt so much hatred of his own body that he had to escape it. All those so called ‘gender’ clinics - complicit.

He was 18, so I couldn’t make medical decisions for him any longer. I asked him to wait 2 years before medicalization so he would have a chance to mature and be certain. He started hormones immediately. Planned Parenthood was complicit - they handed over prescriptions after one visit in which he waived any further psychological exploration. As long as his bloodwork remains okay, they keep those prescriptions going. No one is looking at the rest of his life collapsing around him - left college, keeps quitting jobs, isolating himself - and questioning whether those cross-sex hormones are actually helping the mental issue with which this started. And it’s mental, because where do you decide you are in the wrong body except in your mind.

Doctors and scientists who’ve known for years about social contagion (eating disorders anyone?), who know what deleterious effects cross sex hormones have on the body; who know what, god forbid, amputating a whole endocrine system from a healthy body does; who know that teen brains are not fully mature and subject to rash decisions and the unfounded belief in invincibility, but who still go along with the tide - complicit.

Tik-tokkers and redditors, and social media mavens glorifying the self mutilation - complicit.

And I was complicit too because I just accepted what I was reading and hearing without reading between the lines and really thinking it through. Until it landed at my front door, and I saw the reality. That this movement is destroying young people like my son - young people who need support and understanding and real honest help. There is nothing I can do to help my son - he’s gone. No contact for a year and a half. But I’m going to keep shouting into the wind because maybe whatever words and actions I throw out there may help some other young person escape this horror show. And if nothing else, that’s my penance for my own ignorance and complicity in this.

And lastly, I am so grateful to people like you, Lisa Selin Davis, who are at the forefront, shouting into the wind. I hope you never give up.

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I am so sorry, have had similar experiences and sympathize with you. I, too, was in the "protect trans kids" camp before this landed in my living room completely unannounced (during pandemic isolation and with a host of comorbidities), and before digging in and discovering the realities of what is going on with this trend. I have a couple of adult friends who identify as trans and are happy with where they are - both medicalized as adults (43 and 55) after a lot of research and processing and professional support. Both had significant physical struggles, and both realized the significant bodily compromises (including sterility) and risks (acknowledging the the *known* ones) they were committing to. These people are in a completely different category than the majority of current teens and young adults (much less the children) who have adopted the identities overnight and a re clearly looking for some relief for some very real pain, but being told (online, clinics) that this will solve all their hurt. Much of the current cohort, including mine, are smart, creative, quirky, artistic - and incredibly vulnerable. They don't fit in with what we are currently being fed is what we should look like and how we should act as women and men.

As to how to deal with my own complicity - I am steadily having one on one conversations with friends and community to share my kid's plight, the tragedy of it, and the sad fact that the clinics (like Planned Parenthood, that many of us have supported and still need for birth control and access to health care) are administering these hormones like candy, while under the Informed Consent model releasing themselves of any liability. Most people I speak to assume that there is counseling, background checks and medical follow up accompanying the prescription of these off-label drugs, and are (appropriately) shocked when I tell them my own kid's story. It is gratifying to note the change in attitude when I share - and it is clear that I am not anti-trans. FWIW, both of my trans friends are pretty horrified at what is happening with the youth, and the current politically driven climate.

My heart breaks for you, L RiverOtter and so many other parents whose kids have gone no contact. It's real, and part of the online script. We are dancing the dance here at home while our kid is on summer break from the first year at college (which has been arguably the fire from the frying pan), desperate to keep attachment. She (though we use he) has been on testosterone for 4 months now. We are struggling. I am struggling.

I am also so aware of how precariously close to losing what is left of our democracy, and I will not give this up. The consequences of this are bone-chilling to me. I continue to work in the politically left realm (professionally as well as personally) and will continue this.

May we all keep shouting into the wind - in our own ways- until its course changes. I believe it will.

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You have expressed what happened clearly and powerfully. Keep shouting! When you hear of other parents going through this, your support can help them immeasurably, and through them, you will help their kids, too. Meanwhile, I pray that others will reach your son while he is estranged from you, and that one day soon he'll recognize that he has done nothing but harm himself and will accept himself and reconcile with you.

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This is such a tragedy, and I'm so very sorry.

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I am so sorry for your struggle and your loss

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I exposed my children, including my daughter who got into gender ideology and then left it, to all the progressive, just be kind, everything is valid, let's talk constantly about feelings stuff growing up because I genuinely believed it was the best, "science-backed," most compassionate way to raise health, happy kids. I was very, very wrong. I seriously regret it now. I don't wish I had raised them as conservatives or republicans. I wish I had raised them without politics and without the current progressive parenting trends. I have so much regret and guilt.

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I am right there with you sister 🙏my two daughters 18&20. The 20 year old just had her breasts cut off at Christmas.

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I'm so sorry. This shouldn't happen to anyone, child or parent

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I was complicit in watching while “queer”-identified people told female humans they had no right to speak because they were not being sufficiently queer (male-default gender play) in their thinking, in both the elevated academic spaces I was privy to and online (the Autostraddle vs. AfterEllen debacle — now AS is owned by binder company “For Them”) and being too afraid for my own academic career to say that I agreed with the hated women. Every day, I’m complicit in letting my words be shifted and changed to accommodate alternate perceptions of reality in order to get along at my job. I think these worlds many of us are in are so hostile and potentially life-ruining, especially to us, a lesbian couple on insecure incomes, that we can only confront actions of complicity on the back end, as private guilt — just another thing we have to carry as a burden but can do very little to resolve. Every move we make to engage in public speech to defend female specificity is either inappropriate (too much about “sex,” which reminds people of that other “sex”) or fascist (according to Judith Butler).

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Actually, can we talk seriously about the complicity of powerful academics, who, at least in Judith Butler’s case, have abandoned their original projects of expanding sex categories to defend something very-else called “gender”? In my view, you don’t get more complicit than Judith Butler’s new book “Who’s Afraid of Gender” - including the masculinism of the title. Butler of 1990 and even 2005 would never have written that book.

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I'm so curious about this Rachel - I felt Butler's last book was basically a "thank you" to the community who carried her older theories to the center of the conversation, just holding up a mirror to what they already believed, validating both the gender activists of the day and herself for being at the center of it. Extremely pandering. I am wondering if you have more specific thoughts on what she wrote in the new book that she would "never have written" in 1990/2005?

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Maybe I’m being too generous, but it’s strategic generosity. ;) Her work in 1990 acknowledged sex as a ground (even if it pretended to do something artsier). An article for an Amnesty International publication in 2005 discussed transgendering as a process/project you can do with sex, rather than an interior identity unrelated to it. I want us/Butler (if she ever hears of this angle) to remember that she had a brief moment when she was writing about female-identified butch/femme as disrupting sex-based norms, where she could have been a sex-based lesbian feminist rebel, and then continued down the easier path of inaccessibility-meets-queer pandering that secures your legacy as an academic. There are so many 40+ ex-lesbian academics in the belfry right now. I have a paper about this; could I perhaps send it to you? Also, just released an episode about the new book (soon to release an episode about the older stuff) on the pod Stone Butch Disco… I’m swimming around in it rn. I’m putting up a re-edit of the episode so it’ll be better in 24 hours :/

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Yes I'd love to read that. And I will head to Stone Butch Disco now to listen. I am also swimming around in it at the moment - handing in a QT travel anthology to my editor on Monday, and then finishing my dissertation which deals with truth-telling in writing and academia during the 2020-era single-stream morality. Looking forward to a possible exchange of ideas!

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I would love to chat! I’m in the doubting phase of even putting those episodes (it turned into two) up. They came from a “feelings” place. I would love to read your dissertation. I tend to locate the time when things got weird for me in the academy in around 2015, and I left in 2019 in ABD status, so I never saw the blinding ‘20s… What’s writing a travel anthology like, I wonder? Plenty to chat about!

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I’m not sure how “complicit” I really am, but there are many things I’d do differently if I’d known what I do now. I unfortunately believed the often-told story that transgender people know they are transgender from a very young age, and there must be some biological basis to it. Since I believed that, and had no idea about the cult-like social contagion and brainwashing, I didn’t warn my kids. I didn’t think it was possible for a 14 year old to suddenly decide she was transgender. I was ok with it when my kid joined the GSA (gay and straight kids being friends, what could be wrong with that?). And I didn’t know what it meant when my daughter cut her hair, so I allowed it, and I didn’t know how to react when I found out she was using a different name and pronouns at school, so I didn’t react quickly or strongly enough.

For the first several years I would wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, wracked with guilt, not knowing what to do but feeling I had to do something. I’ve slowly come to the understanding that I cannot control all things, and I can’t go back in time, and that I can’t help that I did not know these things at the time. Who could have known?

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Setting aside the bad actors, I am not sure complicity is a helpful frame. The challenges to doing the right thing here many, and the environment in which these efforts are made is hostile, to say the least. We can only each do our best, support one another, and speak out as and when we can. The more of us who do that, the more difference we can make. As the old saying goes, many hands make light work.

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I was part of a group of girls who were all LGBT+ identified (really just T+). I "helped" give tips to another girl on how to be more masculine, on how to be more like what we thought a boy was. We were 14. I watched her life crumble before my eyes within a few short months. I don't know what happened to her. I ended up doing the same thing with two other girls later on.

Years later and the only thing I can do now is just try to keep other kids from falling into the same traps--talking to struggling kids in my college network, kids in my neighborhood, my own siblings. It's not organized missionary work, but I feel like I'm fixing those past mistakes. And all I can do is hope for the best of those three girls I helped scar permanently.

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I truly feel a good deal of this is caused by AGP males in positions of power line Rachel Levine, Marcy Bowers and Jennifer Pritzner. I’m not sure if all of them do it bc of some kind of twisted misogynistic attitude towards biological females or not, but I suspect it plays a big part. 54 year old gender nonconforming lesbians who knows they would have got me at a young age. Keep doing the good work bc if right wingers were doing this the LGB’s would be calling it out.

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Misogyny is the air they breathe and the water they swim in, they are unable to see their own deeply entrenched Misogyny because it is as common as shit.

Their Misogyny is so insanely entrenched that they think their kink is equivalent to our biological realities.

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I guess that’s why they love to tell gender critical feminist to suck their girl dick. There is no more misogynistic phrase than that.

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It's so enraging. Rachel Levine had children before she transitioned and says she is glad of that, yet she supports these treatments that can render young people sterile.

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It’s why I believe there is misogyny involved

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As a professor who teaches WGS at a super duper Q/T college, I have thought about this a lot. Was I complicit in a faulty narrative by allowing my students to call the shots on what language/ideas were allowed or discouraged in the classroom? Looking back I could say yes, but I also know that I truly felt there was no other choice at the time (2020ish)--I was nervous about the rampant reports against professors--and I never did stop asking the questions about transgender women in sports, etc. including posing "How should sports be separated if at all?" as an exam question. And the truth is I didn't understand where the narrative was heading and thought it would HAVE to correct itself at some point. I'd never seen left-leaning thinkers go so astray, so I honestly thought it was me - as a long-time feminist who was accustomed to quietly tracking anti-feminist thought and behavior, I was used to the feeling of holding my breath. So looking back and truly remembering how things felt at the time, I don't feel complicit because I felt I had no option if I wanted to still be able to reach my students who were steeped in the discourse of the day. Now, I think, is when the complicity begins.

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Those who know child development, Piaget's 4 stages are particularly complicit, as "trans kid" does not comport with the stages. A child ideating a different identity and planning a future in a body damaged through sex trait modification surgery is unable to make actual decisions because the mental health practitioners are treating him/her as a gullible child in the Concrete Operational phase. Piaget's stages: 1. Sensory-Motor, birth to 2, 2. Pre-Operational, ages 3-6, 3. Concrete Operational, ages 7-10, 4. Formal Operational, 11-14. When a teen is "affirmed" by a practitioner of this "speciality," the minor-aged patient is being sent back, regressed, into the Concrete Operational stage, where objects must be involved to demonstrate understandings of our world's realities. Ray Blanchard particularly is complicit, as he sent many adult males back to the Concrete Operational phase, in which make-up, wardrobe, accessories, wigs &etc are the props "proving" the unprovable. For further explanation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_ond6_8cAA

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Excellent. I hope your sons reach out to you soon.

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Everyone who votes democrat is complicit in women being destroyed by men in sports, men exposing themselves to women and girls in locker rooms, and children being castrated.

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Hmm. Maybe this black/white thinking is part of the problem on both sides of the debate, just like disagreeing with even one facet of TRA ideology gets one accused of “genocide.” I think it’s comforting to be able to draw a distinct line between good and bad (and place yourself on the right side of the line) but I don’t think it’s a very productive lens through which to view the world. Shit’s complicated!

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Thank you!

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Voting Republican is not the answer to this. Voting Republican will unleash a host of other terrible things. Educating reasonable people is the only way out. For my money, the reasonable people are the centrists.

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I would definitely be complicit if I did not step up to say I have your back, Christine. I am absolutely furious with the D party’s embrace of this appalling ideology, and I convey that to my electeds and candidates on every occasion I can, but there is a bigger picture here that it is important to acknowledge. I concur, too, with your point about the centrists when it relates to these issues particularly. Fania Oz-Salzberger, while writing about the situation in the Middle East, wrote this, which I think bears strongly on what we are discussing here: “the real chasm threatening the Middle East and the rest of the world is not between right and left, west and non-west, global north and global south, or even Jews and Arabs. It is between moderates and extremists. Consider the recent EU elections results in this light: left and right extremism have fed each other, building up a feverish pitch, while most middle-of-the-road voters stayed at home, sleepily enjoying their private lives as if these were the 1920s. The political laziness of sensible people is the greatest prize for fanatics.”

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What is more terrible than mutilating and castrating children for profit, or letting men destroy women in sports? Are there any centrist Democrats who have condemned these travesties?

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Well, for starters, the way women having miscarriages in states like Texas are being treated right now is equally terrible. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/so-much-blood-ryan-hamilton-describes-what-its-like/id1551582052?i=1000660149159 Trying to overturn an election because you lost is equally terrible, if you ask me.

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I consider myself a progressive democrat and I reject this unscientific reasoning of "children know who they are" and hormones handed out like candy by planned parenthood and mutilating children. My child is grown, so it isn't personal.

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I was blindsided when my son announced he was a woman at the age of 25, two years ago, but I still feel complicit. I encouraged his gentle, nurturing nature and sent him to our city's magnet school for the profoundly gifted.

Born in the 60s, I was pleased to see how sensitive and caring my middle child was, never questioning that men had “evolved” just as feminists had demanded they should, never challenging the contempt I accordingly felt for the “old” model of masculinity, never dreaming what my child was being taught. Now she tells me she never felt she fit in with the other guys. She says it's because she was a woman all along. I say it's (partly) because society never did grow out of the gender stereotypes we disdained in the 70s. I wish I had caught on so much sooner. I wish I had caught on in time for my child.

I believe our society's newfound "tolerance" for trans individuals is just the same old intolerance for strong, aggressive, competitive women and soft, nurturing, accomodative men. As a society, we would rather tell an individual with male reproductive parts, "I affirm you as a woman," than accept his non-conformity to societal expectations. We would rather tell an individual with female reproductive parts, "I affirm you as a man," than accept her non-conformity to societal expectations. As a parent who failed to recognize that pattern, a voter who supported that narrative, a silent member of that society, I feel complicit.

This post has gone on too long, but I want to add that, in my own child's case, numerous other factors have contributed to her dysphoria. Not that any of them were explored before hormones were prescribed, but you all know that story.

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My own complicity, if that is the word, involved being a person of left-wing views in general who moved in left-wing milieux politically, professionally and socially, and who went along with the bien pensant progressive sensibility of being "trans inclusive" without a lot of specific knowledge of issues such as the prevalence of the affirmative model in youth gender medicine.

It was not any specific aspect of gender issues that prompted me to do a double take. It was, in the first instance, reading reports of violations of democratic norms by advocates of "trans rights" in jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom, followed by learning about the personal experiences of such violations of democratic norms from close friends who I knew to have decades of progressive activism behind them and whose concerns could not credibly be dismissed as due to transphobia.

My first specific recognition that there might be a flaw in the narrative (as distinct from a democratic deficit in the behaviour of some of the people who adhered to the narrative) came as a result of learning of the experiences of a friend who was the mother of a teenage girl who had experienced gender dysphoria and thus had come into contact with the gender medicine system in Australia. The girl had, after a year of attempted social gender transitioning, resolved her gender dysphoria by deciding that she was a girl and would be a woman after all. In making this decision she received no support whatsoever from those in and around the youth gender medicine profession with whom she was dealing, in stark contrast to the enthusiastic approval and encouragement afforded gender dysphoric youth who "affirmed their gender".

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So much…I raised my kids and was always left wing, I accepted without question the trans kids narrative until it landed in my house with my two daughters. 15&17. I blame my narrow minded raising of my kids in a bubble. The left wing bubble. That is how I was complicit and the regret is so deep that I still wake up at night wishing I could do it all over again, to start over so this wouldn’t have happened. It’s like a living nightmare. So my entire worldview was to blame. I can’t be 100% certain it wouldn’t have happened if that were different but the odds are much better that we could’ve avoided this if it had been. I have examined my previous worldview and found I was close minded, and holier than thou, had trump derangement syndrome, and unquestionably loyal to the party line. Pathetic really.

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I thought John Paul II's cautions of moral relativism were overblown, and what did he really mean anyway? Now I know better. Also, I always had NPR on, and I may have suffered from Trump derangement syndrome.

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In order to talk about the impact of complicity, I think it needs to be defined. And are we focusing just on kids or in general? What are examples of being complicit? Here are some examples that come to mind:

- A journalist knowingly covering up, obscuring, or otherwise misleading readers in an attempt to support a specific narrative that would be weakened by reporting accurately

- A medical or psych professional who knowingly provides misleading or untrue information to patients and families, withholds information that may be helpful in choosing a treatment path, remains silent about concerns to patient wellbeing in regard to a treatment modality or other aspects of their care, continues prescribing treatment that they believe may he harmful, or advocates in support of a care pathway even when given strong evidence that it is harmful

- An activist who defends an ideological position even after being shown evidence of harm

- A community member who remains silent despite having deep concerns about something being done in a local school or by the government, that may reasonably impact others in a negative way

In my mind, complicity requires the knowledge that what one is doing is harmful. The majority of people I know- including medical and psych professionals- have supported transgender people the best way they know how, updating their views as new information became available. This is especially difficult for professionals, though, as the professional organizations they rely on have been lying to them in addition to there being a huge political push against medical transition... many of them are left not knowing what to believe.

All too often, the reporting on this issue fails to capture the challenges faced by professionals who are truly trying to help their patients at a time when they're working in a protracted state of defensiveness from multiple angles. The patients in question are often seriously struggling; the push to ban treatment in many states has only intensified their distress. While some organizations have extremely lax transition requirements, others are thoroughly assessing and take a rather conservative approach to treatment, yet we paint all of these providers with the same broad brush.

And while we're talking about broad brushes, I'll just say that I worry about other actions being labeled 'complicity' when really they are actions taken in defense of basic human kindness and respect, love. An example that comes to mind is the parent who respects their child's identity by using the name and pronouns they have chosen. This goes for family members in general, as well as friends and acquaintances.

We don't have to affirm that we agree with someone's choice in order to extend the most basic level of respect that allows the relationship to continue. And when it comes to family members, outsiders have absolutely no right to judge or label us 'complicit', as it is an incredibly complicated and painful situation. We are doing our best even if it doesn't seem that way from the view outside.

I have wrestled with the impact of my own complicity (real or perceived), so I'm not trying to dismiss it. I am a detransitioner as well as a family member and friend to many transgender people and even some folks who work in the field of gender medicine. I have experienced harm from transition, just as I have witnessed great benefit to others. Not only do I understand this issue deeply and from multiple angles, but I also understand feeling torn apart from within, unsure how to make a meaningful difference in the world without destroying the people and relationships I value. In the end, I decided that grace was needed.

I thought about the kind of world I wanted to nurture. That world is kind... not fake-kind, authentically kind. It doesn't require silence... in fact, sometimes it demands the courage to speak. But it also demands empathy and sensitivity, remembering one of my most basic beliefs- we are many, yet we are one. Complicity (rather, the judgment tied to it) was corrosive; I chose a different path.

I still struggle with wanting to have a bigger impact because I am very worried about the consequences of today's gender ideology. I am open about my thoughts on the issue in situations where it is appropriate to share, but I also recognize the places where sharing only harms relationships, as the other person is not able to hear different perspectives. I am currently looking for ways all of us can work together to figure out a way forward. I reject polarizing approaches, as they only serve to make this and other issues harder for communities to address.

I know I'm extremely late to the party, but I wanted to respond nonetheless. I thought about your post for hours yesterday and last night, really wrestling with its many (possibly unseen) tangles. I guess that's just the cost of being a deep thinker, though.

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Thank you for this, CC. After reading through the responses above, I have concluded that I agree with Susan Scheid that complicit is not the most useful framing for most of us. Complicit is more for the cases you list above: someone who knows the facts and barrels on ahead in spite of them. I like your approach of aiming for a kinder, more empathetic world and moving forward from there, rather than.focusing on the judgement of complicit or not. Often that means speaking up, sometimes it means staying silent, and we will never get it right 100 percent of the time.

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Is surviving in a hostile environment the same as complicity? My wife and I both grew up working class and worked our asses off in all sorts of shotty jobs to have the 'benefits' of middle class jobs and a middle class life. These benefits include being careful about sharing our true thoughts and opinions at work because we don't want to lose our home/jobs. We have few friends who actually Know us because the SJW's at our respective workplaces would revel in destroying us. Are we complicity or are we just trapped?

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Reading what others have posted here, and thinking about my own experiences since 2018, I think one of the difficulties with expressing even slight scepticism about the orthodox narrative in this space is that this often results, and for a lot of us has resulted, in difficult conversations, strained friendships and even loss of friendships with people who we are in 99.9% agreement with on most other issues, who we like and admire, and who we know to be overwhelmingly decent people who are often busy in goodly works on those other issues. Not everyone is so firmly constituted as to be able to continue with a critical and questioning perspective in the face of this.

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This is not directly to your intent, but if you are a fan of Bulgakov and his "Master and Margarita," you will love this. John Hodge (Trainspotting) wrote a book taking its departure from the fact that Bulgakov wrote a flattering play, "Batum," about Stalin's revolutionary youth in Georgia. The play may have bought Bulgakov life; he died of destitution and illness, not a bullet in the head or physical ruin in the labor camps of the GULag." In any case, Stalin enjoyed playing cat's paw with Bulgakov, most of whose work ("Master and Margarita," "White Guard," "Heart of a Dog") was profoundly anti-Soviet.

The conceit of this three-person play is that Stalin gives summons to Bulgakov and commands him to write "Batum." Bulgakov proudly demurs on his honor and integrity as an author. OK, says Stalin, I will make you a deal: I will write "Batum" and you will take over my duties while I write. Bulgakov assents, but gradually becomes complicit with Stalin's terror because Bulgakov is now signing the death warrants for intellectuals, dissidents, and hapless Communists.

Like the film "Mephisto" (1981), "Collaborators" provides a dark depiction how compromise with the devil, under influence of self-delusion and the drive for self-preservation, can lead to abject abasement and complicity because "red lines" and moral reservations dissolve as we slide down the slippery slope.

I saw the play once on National Theatre Live, but you can simply order the script.

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I was complicit until I realized that I was complicit. Now I stand where I stand. Tomorrow I may shift perspectives again. And, I believe that, mostly, people believe and do as they do because at the moment of doing they believe it is right. If, why and how people – myself included – come to have a new or different or more complex perspective--about anything!-- is what interests me as a psychologist and a citizen. Thanks for asking.

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I grew up in a bizarrely dysfunctional family. I was the only child. My father lied pathologically and pervasively.

Having strange, unusual neuro-metabolic problems, I've had unusual life problems. Bureaucrats have routinely resorted to lying in order to deal with me.

I have developed an almost pathological hatred of lying.

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