Speaking the Truth Out Loud

Notes from the Genspect Conference

So, it turns out I’m not capable of taking a hiatus from writing, but I will admit I’m hopped up on goofballs and the screen is a little fuzzy. Still, I wanted to share a few thoughts about the Genspect conference while I’m still feeling its effects.

Genspect—run by Stella O’Malley, Alasdair Gunn, and Joe Burgo—has decided to hold parallel conferences anytime WPATH (the World Professional Association for Transgender Health) and its affiliates hold one. So while USPATH, WPATH’s U.S. chapter, talked “science” down the road in the Denver suburb of Westminster, Genspect speakers dismantled that same flimsy science—but in a way that connected it to the real lives of people affected by it. If the SEGM conference was about the poor evidence for “gender-affirming care,” the Genspect conference was about what happens to families when that care is applied—in law, medicine, psychology, education and the media.

I’ve been in this rabbit hole for six years now, and this conference brought together in person many of the people also stuck down here, whom I’ve talked to, worked with, and interviewed—so many people who’ve cried over Zooms, whose stories I’ve tried to get the media to print, or whose written essays I’ve tried to help get published, usually to no avail. It was incredibly overwhelming and at times confusing: was I there as a parent or a reporter or a concerned citizen?

Well, all of those things, which is why I felt so connected to so many of the people there, and to the speakers: January Littlejohn, a parent whose child was secretly socially transitioned at school; journalist Michael Shellenberger, who spoke about the disbelief among liberals, even in his own family, about the seriousness of what’s happening to young people, and who introduced me to the brilliant term Leftugee; and Christina Buttons, whose slide (above) captures the very heart of the matter. We can’t have informed consent if it’s based on misinformation.

One highlight of the conference was Jamie Reed’s speech, about why we shouldn’t give up on the Left or Democrats. The pluralist, tolerant principles we once held have been erased and replaced by extremism: if you go far enough left, you hit the right. She spoke of her time in the anarchist movement, and the work to undo restrictive gender roles, as evidenced in this poster (which is one of my favorites):

But medicating the boys and girls described in this poster—that’s the opposite of the movement’s goal, which was acceptance of nonconformity, resistance to the messages about how boys and girls should behave and look. Never did they suggest such kids should make bodily changes.

I heard whispers that the conference was political. Indeed, the hilarious and compassionate Stephen Levine got so much applause that he declared he’d run for office. But I didn’t find it political at all. People stated facts about medicine and told stories of their lives—stories that only get reported in the right-wing media. The point is to wrest the issue from politics, to have it covered fairly, to tell the whole story. There were many adults trans people in attendance, concerned about pediatric and adolescent “sex” change, and many detransitioners as well.

When Michael Shellenberger spoke, I felt as if he were narrating my life, increasingly isolated from fellow liberals. We’ve developed what he called “political identity dysphoria.” He spoke about the people like us who say, “Well, maybe I’m a conservative,” and then hang out with conservatives for a few days and reconsider. (I’m sorry, my conservative readers—I can still respect you without sharing your worldview.)

“When you meet detransitioners, it changes you,” Shellenberger said. And that’s true. When I was at the American Academy of Pediatrics conference with Laura Becker, Chloe Cole, Abel Garcia, Camille Kiefel and Prisha Mosley, I asked if it was okay if I referred to them as “the costs” of the cost-benefit analysis, and they consented. When we’re weighing costs and benefits, we have to acknowledge those costs, and when the costs are permanent unwanted physical changes, worsened physical and mental health, well, those are huge. Politics should never get in the way of telling the truth about medicine. But these young people are considered “morally acceptable collateral damage,” by the vast majority of supporters of gender affirming care.

I had to leave early on Sunday, which made me very sad. But I was glad to hear Heather Heying speak. I learned about bisexual lizards, and that the more monogamous an animal is, the less sexually dimorphic. She also spoke about greater male variability: there are more geniuses among men than women…but there are also more morons. She also spoke of the joys of co-ed Ultimate Frisbee. Right on!

Back to bed for me, but I want to thank Stella, Alasdair, and Joe for including me. I have so much to say about the failure of media. If only The New York Times had covered this issue adequately, we wouldn’t be needing this conference. And yet, it was so fortifying to be with the people whose pain I’ve witnessed and whose joys and concerns I’ve shared. I hope someday we have a conference again, in which we’re celebrating the reform of gender medicine and the returned sanity of the Left.