Thoughtful piece, as always! However, here’s my nitpick. When I say I don’t believe, I’m saying I don’t believe in “true trans,” a category that is immutable, biological, brain based, etc. I don’t mean that people who identify as trans don’t exist. Of course they do.
The question for me is whether or not they could ever identify out of it—just as a Christian could lose her faith and identify out of it. “True trans” posits that is impossible. And that’s what I disbelieve when I say I don’t believe in “true trans.”
It's so slippery, isn't it? If you say "trans kids", some people will assume you mean the same as "red-haired kids" or "blue-eyed kids", instead of the more casual meaning I think LSD is describing.
I think this exaggerated care we all have to take with language comes at least in part from the way language is weaponized by the gender faithful. Pronouns and gender-versus-sex and all of this stuff is mostly rhetorical and not real (Helen Joyce has pointed this out), but it's easy to get so tangled in it all that you just want to throw up your hands. I think most regular people--not obsessives like us--do just that, and that means the genderists get their way. (To some extent.)
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lisa. I cannot overstate how much I agree with and how essential I believe your point on Gender Ideology the religion is. It is by far the most important framing and, I believe, the best way for us to break through to people on why people are welcome to believe and practice this without restrictions* but that *the State* cannot compel participation in a religion.
The Evangelical Left. We are all human, and to make too big a point in a tiny space, I believe we all have a proclivity towards religion, even if it isn’t organized and explicitly theist. This is, to me, nothing more than a manifestation of that proclivity. By all means, have at it. But the big challenge is that this is a religion that doesn’t recognize itself as one.
*I don’t know what the limits are for elective, cosmetic surgery and medicine, but those are the limits I see here, not the high incidence of “perverse” behavior. To whatever extent someone’s being perverse leads to the breaking of a law, only then is it something of concern for the State.
Alex… yes the state cannot compel others to participate… and yes it is a religion that does not recognize itself as one. Is there a way for the trans religion to exist without forcing non-believers to participate? To me, it seems fundamentally a part of it, and therefore fundamentally illiberal.
Another thing I’m thinking about is how yes, it’s true we tend to overstate the facts on our side, and not everyone is irreparably harmed. Lisa’s example about how some who have undergone medicalization do NOT wind up sterile or sexually dysfunctional. However if you apply biomedical ethics to this equation, overstating those facts no longer matters. If even some people are harmed it still makes it ethically very sketchy. Hopefully that makes sense.
Your point about biomedical ethics as a frame for discussion, rather than yielding to the temptation to overstate the known facts, is excellent. This is exactly the kind of thinking we need to do.
I don't know whether it can exist without compelling everyone's participation. On the face of it, though, I have no problem with letting it try, because I'm also very concerned about the precedent of the State labeling any ideology as too dangerous, even if I don't align with it.
I do think your biomedical ethics point is spot on, and is the boundary for permissibility. That's certainly the case for children, for whom we limit body modifications (e.g. tattoos are not ok, earrings are ok). But in the event there is any risk of material harm to the child (and I think that harm could even just be regret), even if the risk is overstated by some among us that someone won't like the surgery, I think it would be unethical.
For adults? I don't know what those boundaries are. Again, I think it's very different if it's presented in the same context as an elective breast implant as opposed to genuine medicine, for which I think it is definitionally unqualified. I cannot think of any "medically necessary" elective, cosmetic surgeries (or medicines with a cosmetic end) that we administer.
Very well put. But, isn't the suggestion from the research we do have that those who benefit (from medicalization of gender dysphoria) are the very few (if any), not the majority? (And that assumes some idea that a human can "benefit" even with such drastic changes to her functioning/appearance/self-perception). So, perhaps the ethical question becomes, should a broad population be hurt (and I would argue that the make-believe of trans is itself hurting us) in aid of (the self-perceived) benefit to the very few?
Yes and this makes it the mirror image of vaccines (IMO) where the general benefit (of the tried and true ones) outweighs the rare harms (bad reactions / vaccine injuries).
That can be a tough argument. A few people (some would argue many, not I) are harmed by vaccines (even the tried and true non-mRNA ones). But that doesn’t mean those vaccines should be banned (or shouldn’t be mandated for school attendance etc.).
Yours is exactly the kind of voice we need most right now. You write, “I try to be careful, to use “some” and “many” and “maybe” and “suggested” and “possible,” which drives some people crazy and certainly would not get me hired as an activist. But that’s because I’m not an activist for anything but the truth . . .”.
Our ability to change hearts and minds depends utterly on speaking the truth, as best we are able to discern it, and on correcting course as needed when we learn something new. Each time we depart from dedication to the truth, we lose credibility. For that reason alone, you, Lisa, are my kind of activist. Tip of the 🎩, and many thanks.
I also want to say that overstating facts on both sides is demonizing, and we need to move away from this. It will be very helpful if we can rein in the insane hyperbole. Let’s stick with what we really know to be true so that we don’t harm people. This is essay makes a great point about that.
Fascinating. We don’t research faith. We have faith. This is why trans ideology detests research and really works hard to make it go away. The slogan ‘trans women are women’ is a statement of faith like the Jewish prayer ‘the Lord is one’. It’s out of the domain of research. Lisa’s framing here is very explanatory of what we have witnessed.
Yes exactly… out of the domain of research . Scientific research. Another question is, since this is out of the domain of scientific research, why do we keep insisting on more scientific evidence, on both sides?
"why do we keep insisting on more scientific evidence, on both sides?"
Excellent point. It's playing into the hands of a gender activist to even discuss baseless research, because the entire thing is unscientific! I learned recently that Socrates would end a debate before it started by destroying a viewpoint's its illogical underpinnings. You are so right that we need to do that on this very topic!
Thank you Lisa. You have perfectly articulated what I have been feeling for the past year growing like a snowball rolling down a mountain. I am exhausted by the strident positions and provocative language that is becoming more and more prevalent every day. The Trump Administration's pushback on gender ideology has turned the dial way past 10 and more and more people on the left are speaking like they belong in the Westboro Baptist Church. We are shooting ourselves in the head, not just the foot, when we give up on trying to change hearts and minds, when we attack trans identifying children and teens, even if they are boys playing in girls sports and using girls locker rooms. Calling a 12 year old a pervert may make some people feel better by releasing their anger, but it gets us nowhere and just confirms the belief among liberals/progressives that anyone who has issues with gender ideology is a foaming at the mouth bigot who wants to hurt trans identifying people, including children.
I had a memory while reading this of being a student attending Lutheran seminary graduate school pursuing a professional church degree. Two women who had earned Master of Divinity degrees from Harvard Divinity School arrived to do their “Lutheran year”, as they would only be eligible to be ordained as Lutheran ministers if they had been summarily Lutheranized. I had a conversation with them in which they implied that the story of the Resurrection wasn’t real; it was mind-blowing to me that they could want to serve in a religious organization while having the nerve to call out the mythology involved. I’m not sure whether or not you resonate with the relevancy to your commentary — just know that you are part of a long tradition of courageous women seeking to be of service while daring to pursue and state truth.
I don't doubt what people feel but are they a kind of human destined to only be happy if they medically transition?
Zero men and women with the genital surgeries are fertile and don't forget that the Dutch encourage at least castration for men because
Anti androgens are bad, too. I think they actually call it health reasons.
As far as evidence, the MDs who have more of it, who have been pushing these interventions either hide it or write papers that hide it.
Where are the outcomes after only hormones from devries 2014? They have them. Maybe relevant for today?
Those were almost all LGB kids.
And Chen et al, where are the rest of the outcomes?
You can believe whatever you want about yourself, one always can, but it's not just the state that's the problem for what happens in response. It's the myth around it coupled with MDs and their associations hiding inconvenient facts and saying things which aren't true. And the NYT which repeatedly pushes the culture war rather than medicine and " these kids need this" refrain and the suicide myth. Just implied now for the last one.
If the nyt had done its job a lot of suffering and harm would have been avoided. Love those clicks and performative status points....
Yes, of course if you have your gonads removed you’re infertile! I’m just talking about overstating claims and evidence. I know some people believe in the idea of “born on the wrong body.” It’s a really wild belief. I’m not saying we need to have entire industries catering to it. I’m saying that making the belief illegal or unspeakable won’t make it disappear. I want my atheism—both in regards to god and gender—respected. So if we can give some respect to the believers, maybe it will help with negotiations.
"They had absolutely no room for the possibility that there was any other way of seeing the world beyond what The New York Times had laid out for them. That’s why I’m so desperate to get The New York Times to evolve, too."
As the Bee Gees sang all those years ago, "You may try to understand/The New York Times effect on man (sic)".
Great article, Lisa, and I'm completely with you on the difficulty of expressing opinions on this issue without making statements that gloss over nuances. Please let me tell a personal story that has been preoccupying me for a couple of days now:
A few days ago, I had a very contentious phone conversation with my sister, who lives in a different country and to whom I speak relatively rarely. I had revealed my gender critical ideas to her earlier this year, upon which she revealed to me that her daughter (early 20s) is currently in a relationship with a transwoman. Since she had said she wanted to learn more about this issue and why I objected, I sent her Joyce's and Stock's books. Months passed and she never acknowledged the receipt.
So when she called this week, at the end of the friendly conversation I decided to ask if she had received the books. She said she had received them, but had no time or interest to read them, and then launched into an angry interrogation of why I cannot affirm her daughter's boyfriend by using preferred pronouns (I would, if I actually interacted with them in person), and why I have to "make this political" (I didn't, she just thinks any talk about societal implications is political), and why I think he identifies as a woman??? And why do I care because it doesn't affect me at all?
I tried to evade the question about her daughter's partner by saying something vague about social contagion, which she countered with the line that "trans people have existed for thousands of years and therefore there are true trans people and it's not a social contagion!". This then prompted me to say that historically, there were very feminine homosexual men, and in some cultures they were pushed into a third category to be tolerated... Which led to her pointing out that her daughter's friend is not gay. True, so what do I say then? I should have maybe said something about trans identity as a coping mechanism, a source of community, an explanation for teenage angst, or even a political identity, but... I ended up pointing to Blanchard's research showing that historically the other major cohort, which emerged in the 20th century, were autogynophiles. This, of course, was taken as me saying that her daughter's boyfriend must be an autogynephile, which is definitely not what I meant, but at this point she was so angry that I couldn't explain further. I then got myself into even deeper trouble when she bragged how she was open minded and didn't have any issue whatsoever to see this boyfriend as a woman, and I responded, well, then I guess you are captured (I used the English word, even though I was having the conversation in my native language, which is an extra hurdle for me in expressing myself clearly on this issue)... She hung up angrily shortly after. Oh yeah, somewhere in this heated conversation, I also said something about men colonizing womanhood, that didn't go over well, either.
Now I have been spending the past couple of days trying to write out what I wish I had said. Mostly because writing it out helps me stop ruminating about it. Clearly I can't handle this kind of thing in person very well, and I'm never very quick on my feet or able to be nuanced when someone goes at me angrily. I fear that if I don't explain myself, we may not speak for a long time. So I'm writing a letter about my perspective, which of course rests centrally on the idea you are spelling out here, that "gender identity" is a belief system. I can respect that belief system, but I still think it is destructive for individuals and for society, and I don't appreciate being compelled to participate in it. I am also trying to explain why it does affect me, from my autistic, somewhat gender nonconforming son being high risk (in theory, I think in practice he is well inoculated), and my own history as a gender nonconforming girl who really wanted to be boy before I hit puberty.
I am not sure my letter, which (like this comment) is way too long, will go over well, because the problem is, of course, that these people don't want to be told that they believe in a religion. They think this is all scientific and rational. Therefore, saying "I respect your religious belief, please respect my opposition to it", will never fly. As, I guess, is inevitable when dealing with religious believers.
I don't know if I will ever send this letter (I fear her angry response and it stresses me out too much), but if I don't, I don't know when we will speak again.
Autogynophelia, while absolutely real, is the third rail when trying to talk to someone who has embraced gender ideology. It is not something you can broach in an opening conversation about gender ideology. I have found bringing up almost any issue involving sexuality or sexual behavior and transgenderism will shut down the conversation. In the US we are so squeamish about sex already, TRAs have worked overtime to make sex and sexuality have nothing to do with transgenderism ("it's how you feel inside" "it's your deep sense of self"). That is why the "trans child" has become their primary focus, if children are transgender, than it is not something sexual, it is just a normal expression of their "authentic self" and has nothing to do with sexual arousal or fetishistic behavior. It blocks any discussion of transition as a form of gay conversion therapy. Even bringing up real concerns about children growing up to be adults who lack sexual function gets shut down with accusations that you're the pervert for caring that children have the opportunity to grow up and become adults who are capable of having fulfilling sex lives. This is the genius of the TRAs, they have made it impossible to discuss the real, problematic issues with transgenderism because they have conditioned people to believe that transgenderism has nothing to do with sexuality, and anyone who tries to demonstrate that is does gets shut down as a pervert.
Yeah, I know... I regret bringing it up. But since I had mentioned the historical situation of homosexuals (thinking the argument about homophobia playing into transgenderism will help liberals understand), and she then shot back that he is not gay, I slipped into mentioning Blanchard's findings. Without them, it's hard to counter the idea of "true trans". But I know that was a bad idea.
Now I wish I could explain that I think the situation with the current cohort is quite different (even though I believe that Blanchard's findings still play a role).
I will admit I have a much harder time understanding adult, straight men who identify as women as mainfesting anything other than autogynophelia, or if not autogynophelia, some other form of fetishistic behavior. I'm just not sure I understand what straight adult men are trying to cope with by identifying as female the way I understand what adult, straight women are trying to cope with by identifying as male. I just see some sort of cross dressing fetish, or humiliation fetish, if not full blown AGP.
I don't know what this young man's story is, and how long this has been going on. From what I've heard and seen in pictures, he seems like a sensitive, feminine type. He's vegan, which I think goes with trans as a political identity. I can imagine that someone like him could just be thinking of himself as feminine, and with transgenderism being promoted as a natural and healthy choice, he could just think it's an option that gives him meaning and community. (I know he hasn't had any surgery, and may not be on hormones either.) But of course I also think that this could be additionally fueled by some sort of autogynephilic desire. I don't necessarily think of autogynephilia as perverse or morally repugnant, and not necessarily misogynistic (contrary to what my sister now believes, I'm pretty liberal and non-judgmental).
What baffles me is how my niece can be attracted to that. That truly boggles my mind. But I guess she was just brought up seeing transness as totally normal. Years ago, she dated a girl who identified as a boy. But before this current relationship, she dated a totally average guy. Pansexual, I guess.
I think young women in particular are under a lot of social pressure to accept things they really aren't comfortable with sexually, whether that is the abusive, toxic sexuality of the Andrew Tates of the world (being choked, hit, spit on, anal sex, BDSM), accepting "transbians" as sexual partners, or being with a transman. It's the whole "being attracted to gender not genitals" and being "genderfluid". Young women are under a lot of pressure to conform their sexuality to whatever the male they are with wants. It may be that he seems "safe" compared to the young men who have been influenced by men like Andrew Tate. Maybe she's an onmi/pansexual, demiromantic, gender fluid/expansive nonlesbian.
@KateP I just wanted to acknowledge all this crap you going through all this. Write the letter, even if you don’t send it. And have hope that you and your sister will speak again.
This is a terrible time, but it can’t last forever.
Thank you, I appreciate it. I don't cope with this very well and start ruminating compulsively about it. I don't like arguments, but at the same time I can't stop myself from saying what I think.
I'm just very predisposed to heterodox ideas, very much like my father. Of course during that same conversation, my sister yelled at me that I sound like him. I said, yeah, I know, I'm his daughter, to which she replied "Have fun with that!". I did call him later that day to vent. He just said, you have to understand that she lives in that woke bubble, and it's like talking to a Jehovah's Witness! He recommended just giving it up, like he did a long time ago (they see each other but don't talk anything political).
I keep thinking about this article. I too have found framing trans-ideology as a religion VERY helpful. The tricky part, for me: are parents allowed to raise children in trans-ideology? Believe in sex flexibility? YES. Raise child as the opposite sex? MAYBE? Block their child's puberty? or Administer their child wrong-sex hormones? NO. IMO it's similar, but not the same as Christian Scientists withholding medical care. Thoughts?
After everything I went through fighting trans-ideology, I'm a strong believer in parental rights. I suppose the courts will have to draw the line.
I think the analogy still holds, we ban Female Genital Mutilation despite the fact that it is a religious practice. If an adult woman wants to undergo the procedure, she can, but you cannot do it to a child. You can raise a girl to think it is a practice required by God, you just can't have her undergo it while she is a minor. But I think the advatage to treating gender ideology like religious belief is that we can get it out of schools. I have tried making this argument to my school district, but people really don't get it (or they claim not to). I have said schools have no more right to tell my child they have a gender identity than to tell my child they have a soul, and the school has no more role in helping a child understand their "gender identity" than it does helping a child understand their religious identity. So far it has fallen on mostly deaf ears, but I am hopeful that more people will eventually come to understand and accept this framing of the issue. I am waiting for my district to roll out the opt-out process for gender identity lessons, because I plan on opting my children out based on the argument that the District is teaching the equivalent of a religious belief, which I do not share and do not want taught to my children. We'll see how it goes, it may very well end up in Court.
How about a statement like "married autogynophiles are violent to their wives sexually 39% of the time and physically 38% of the time, based on Ute Heggen's data, 74 women's testimonies." Does that clarify anything?
I love both these comments.
Which ones? Substack can display comments in various orders so it’s hard to tell which ones you mean.
Thoughtful piece, as always! However, here’s my nitpick. When I say I don’t believe, I’m saying I don’t believe in “true trans,” a category that is immutable, biological, brain based, etc. I don’t mean that people who identify as trans don’t exist. Of course they do.
The question for me is whether or not they could ever identify out of it—just as a Christian could lose her faith and identify out of it. “True trans” posits that is impossible. And that’s what I disbelieve when I say I don’t believe in “true trans.”
Exactly. It is a belief system. Separation of belief system and state, please.
People that identify as trans exist. I prefer that phrase to "transgender people"--language matters.
Also, so much of this piggybacks on the gay rights movement, perhaps even the "born this way" movement.
If the New York Times decides to stop gatekeeping the news, I'll consider that a miracle.
It's so slippery, isn't it? If you say "trans kids", some people will assume you mean the same as "red-haired kids" or "blue-eyed kids", instead of the more casual meaning I think LSD is describing.
I think this exaggerated care we all have to take with language comes at least in part from the way language is weaponized by the gender faithful. Pronouns and gender-versus-sex and all of this stuff is mostly rhetorical and not real (Helen Joyce has pointed this out), but it's easy to get so tangled in it all that you just want to throw up your hands. I think most regular people--not obsessives like us--do just that, and that means the genderists get their way. (To some extent.)
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Lisa. I cannot overstate how much I agree with and how essential I believe your point on Gender Ideology the religion is. It is by far the most important framing and, I believe, the best way for us to break through to people on why people are welcome to believe and practice this without restrictions* but that *the State* cannot compel participation in a religion.
The Evangelical Left. We are all human, and to make too big a point in a tiny space, I believe we all have a proclivity towards religion, even if it isn’t organized and explicitly theist. This is, to me, nothing more than a manifestation of that proclivity. By all means, have at it. But the big challenge is that this is a religion that doesn’t recognize itself as one.
*I don’t know what the limits are for elective, cosmetic surgery and medicine, but those are the limits I see here, not the high incidence of “perverse” behavior. To whatever extent someone’s being perverse leads to the breaking of a law, only then is it something of concern for the State.
Alex… yes the state cannot compel others to participate… and yes it is a religion that does not recognize itself as one. Is there a way for the trans religion to exist without forcing non-believers to participate? To me, it seems fundamentally a part of it, and therefore fundamentally illiberal.
Another thing I’m thinking about is how yes, it’s true we tend to overstate the facts on our side, and not everyone is irreparably harmed. Lisa’s example about how some who have undergone medicalization do NOT wind up sterile or sexually dysfunctional. However if you apply biomedical ethics to this equation, overstating those facts no longer matters. If even some people are harmed it still makes it ethically very sketchy. Hopefully that makes sense.
Your point about biomedical ethics as a frame for discussion, rather than yielding to the temptation to overstate the known facts, is excellent. This is exactly the kind of thinking we need to do.
I don't know whether it can exist without compelling everyone's participation. On the face of it, though, I have no problem with letting it try, because I'm also very concerned about the precedent of the State labeling any ideology as too dangerous, even if I don't align with it.
I do think your biomedical ethics point is spot on, and is the boundary for permissibility. That's certainly the case for children, for whom we limit body modifications (e.g. tattoos are not ok, earrings are ok). But in the event there is any risk of material harm to the child (and I think that harm could even just be regret), even if the risk is overstated by some among us that someone won't like the surgery, I think it would be unethical.
For adults? I don't know what those boundaries are. Again, I think it's very different if it's presented in the same context as an elective breast implant as opposed to genuine medicine, for which I think it is definitionally unqualified. I cannot think of any "medically necessary" elective, cosmetic surgeries (or medicines with a cosmetic end) that we administer.
Very well put. But, isn't the suggestion from the research we do have that those who benefit (from medicalization of gender dysphoria) are the very few (if any), not the majority? (And that assumes some idea that a human can "benefit" even with such drastic changes to her functioning/appearance/self-perception). So, perhaps the ethical question becomes, should a broad population be hurt (and I would argue that the make-believe of trans is itself hurting us) in aid of (the self-perceived) benefit to the very few?
Yes and this makes it the mirror image of vaccines (IMO) where the general benefit (of the tried and true ones) outweighs the rare harms (bad reactions / vaccine injuries).
That can be a tough argument. A few people (some would argue many, not I) are harmed by vaccines (even the tried and true non-mRNA ones). But that doesn’t mean those vaccines should be banned (or shouldn’t be mandated for school attendance etc.).
Yours is exactly the kind of voice we need most right now. You write, “I try to be careful, to use “some” and “many” and “maybe” and “suggested” and “possible,” which drives some people crazy and certainly would not get me hired as an activist. But that’s because I’m not an activist for anything but the truth . . .”.
Our ability to change hearts and minds depends utterly on speaking the truth, as best we are able to discern it, and on correcting course as needed when we learn something new. Each time we depart from dedication to the truth, we lose credibility. For that reason alone, you, Lisa, are my kind of activist. Tip of the 🎩, and many thanks.
You are always very nice to me!
Oh, my, what a lovely thing to say. ❤️
I also want to say that overstating facts on both sides is demonizing, and we need to move away from this. It will be very helpful if we can rein in the insane hyperbole. Let’s stick with what we really know to be true so that we don’t harm people. This is essay makes a great point about that.
Fascinating. We don’t research faith. We have faith. This is why trans ideology detests research and really works hard to make it go away. The slogan ‘trans women are women’ is a statement of faith like the Jewish prayer ‘the Lord is one’. It’s out of the domain of research. Lisa’s framing here is very explanatory of what we have witnessed.
Yes exactly… out of the domain of research . Scientific research. Another question is, since this is out of the domain of scientific research, why do we keep insisting on more scientific evidence, on both sides?
"why do we keep insisting on more scientific evidence, on both sides?"
Excellent point. It's playing into the hands of a gender activist to even discuss baseless research, because the entire thing is unscientific! I learned recently that Socrates would end a debate before it started by destroying a viewpoint's its illogical underpinnings. You are so right that we need to do that on this very topic!
Because people wish to claim it justifies presenting medical intervention as the only option.
And to use gender to replace sex in policy.
If people just want to do what jkr said, dress like whatever love whoever etc...go for it!
Thank you Lisa. You have perfectly articulated what I have been feeling for the past year growing like a snowball rolling down a mountain. I am exhausted by the strident positions and provocative language that is becoming more and more prevalent every day. The Trump Administration's pushback on gender ideology has turned the dial way past 10 and more and more people on the left are speaking like they belong in the Westboro Baptist Church. We are shooting ourselves in the head, not just the foot, when we give up on trying to change hearts and minds, when we attack trans identifying children and teens, even if they are boys playing in girls sports and using girls locker rooms. Calling a 12 year old a pervert may make some people feel better by releasing their anger, but it gets us nowhere and just confirms the belief among liberals/progressives that anyone who has issues with gender ideology is a foaming at the mouth bigot who wants to hurt trans identifying people, including children.
I had a memory while reading this of being a student attending Lutheran seminary graduate school pursuing a professional church degree. Two women who had earned Master of Divinity degrees from Harvard Divinity School arrived to do their “Lutheran year”, as they would only be eligible to be ordained as Lutheran ministers if they had been summarily Lutheranized. I had a conversation with them in which they implied that the story of the Resurrection wasn’t real; it was mind-blowing to me that they could want to serve in a religious organization while having the nerve to call out the mythology involved. I’m not sure whether or not you resonate with the relevancy to your commentary — just know that you are part of a long tradition of courageous women seeking to be of service while daring to pursue and state truth.
Ask what they mean by true trans....
I don't doubt what people feel but are they a kind of human destined to only be happy if they medically transition?
Zero men and women with the genital surgeries are fertile and don't forget that the Dutch encourage at least castration for men because
Anti androgens are bad, too. I think they actually call it health reasons.
As far as evidence, the MDs who have more of it, who have been pushing these interventions either hide it or write papers that hide it.
Where are the outcomes after only hormones from devries 2014? They have them. Maybe relevant for today?
Those were almost all LGB kids.
And Chen et al, where are the rest of the outcomes?
You can believe whatever you want about yourself, one always can, but it's not just the state that's the problem for what happens in response. It's the myth around it coupled with MDs and their associations hiding inconvenient facts and saying things which aren't true. And the NYT which repeatedly pushes the culture war rather than medicine and " these kids need this" refrain and the suicide myth. Just implied now for the last one.
If the nyt had done its job a lot of suffering and harm would have been avoided. Love those clicks and performative status points....
Yes, of course if you have your gonads removed you’re infertile! I’m just talking about overstating claims and evidence. I know some people believe in the idea of “born on the wrong body.” It’s a really wild belief. I’m not saying we need to have entire industries catering to it. I’m saying that making the belief illegal or unspeakable won’t make it disappear. I want my atheism—both in regards to god and gender—respected. So if we can give some respect to the believers, maybe it will help with negotiations.
That said: you know so much about the research. Keep telling us what is unequivocally true!
"We must always leave a bit of wiggle room—not just for the possibility of being wrong, but for the probability of needing to evolve."
Amen, sister!
I would make a terrible activist too for the exact same reason. Thank you for the nuanced reporting you do.
Seriously, you and Meghan are my two favorites. Keeping nuance come rain or shine. Thank you!
"They had absolutely no room for the possibility that there was any other way of seeing the world beyond what The New York Times had laid out for them. That’s why I’m so desperate to get The New York Times to evolve, too."
As the Bee Gees sang all those years ago, "You may try to understand/The New York Times effect on man (sic)".
Great article, Lisa, and I'm completely with you on the difficulty of expressing opinions on this issue without making statements that gloss over nuances. Please let me tell a personal story that has been preoccupying me for a couple of days now:
A few days ago, I had a very contentious phone conversation with my sister, who lives in a different country and to whom I speak relatively rarely. I had revealed my gender critical ideas to her earlier this year, upon which she revealed to me that her daughter (early 20s) is currently in a relationship with a transwoman. Since she had said she wanted to learn more about this issue and why I objected, I sent her Joyce's and Stock's books. Months passed and she never acknowledged the receipt.
So when she called this week, at the end of the friendly conversation I decided to ask if she had received the books. She said she had received them, but had no time or interest to read them, and then launched into an angry interrogation of why I cannot affirm her daughter's boyfriend by using preferred pronouns (I would, if I actually interacted with them in person), and why I have to "make this political" (I didn't, she just thinks any talk about societal implications is political), and why I think he identifies as a woman??? And why do I care because it doesn't affect me at all?
I tried to evade the question about her daughter's partner by saying something vague about social contagion, which she countered with the line that "trans people have existed for thousands of years and therefore there are true trans people and it's not a social contagion!". This then prompted me to say that historically, there were very feminine homosexual men, and in some cultures they were pushed into a third category to be tolerated... Which led to her pointing out that her daughter's friend is not gay. True, so what do I say then? I should have maybe said something about trans identity as a coping mechanism, a source of community, an explanation for teenage angst, or even a political identity, but... I ended up pointing to Blanchard's research showing that historically the other major cohort, which emerged in the 20th century, were autogynophiles. This, of course, was taken as me saying that her daughter's boyfriend must be an autogynephile, which is definitely not what I meant, but at this point she was so angry that I couldn't explain further. I then got myself into even deeper trouble when she bragged how she was open minded and didn't have any issue whatsoever to see this boyfriend as a woman, and I responded, well, then I guess you are captured (I used the English word, even though I was having the conversation in my native language, which is an extra hurdle for me in expressing myself clearly on this issue)... She hung up angrily shortly after. Oh yeah, somewhere in this heated conversation, I also said something about men colonizing womanhood, that didn't go over well, either.
Now I have been spending the past couple of days trying to write out what I wish I had said. Mostly because writing it out helps me stop ruminating about it. Clearly I can't handle this kind of thing in person very well, and I'm never very quick on my feet or able to be nuanced when someone goes at me angrily. I fear that if I don't explain myself, we may not speak for a long time. So I'm writing a letter about my perspective, which of course rests centrally on the idea you are spelling out here, that "gender identity" is a belief system. I can respect that belief system, but I still think it is destructive for individuals and for society, and I don't appreciate being compelled to participate in it. I am also trying to explain why it does affect me, from my autistic, somewhat gender nonconforming son being high risk (in theory, I think in practice he is well inoculated), and my own history as a gender nonconforming girl who really wanted to be boy before I hit puberty.
I am not sure my letter, which (like this comment) is way too long, will go over well, because the problem is, of course, that these people don't want to be told that they believe in a religion. They think this is all scientific and rational. Therefore, saying "I respect your religious belief, please respect my opposition to it", will never fly. As, I guess, is inevitable when dealing with religious believers.
I don't know if I will ever send this letter (I fear her angry response and it stresses me out too much), but if I don't, I don't know when we will speak again.
Autogynophelia, while absolutely real, is the third rail when trying to talk to someone who has embraced gender ideology. It is not something you can broach in an opening conversation about gender ideology. I have found bringing up almost any issue involving sexuality or sexual behavior and transgenderism will shut down the conversation. In the US we are so squeamish about sex already, TRAs have worked overtime to make sex and sexuality have nothing to do with transgenderism ("it's how you feel inside" "it's your deep sense of self"). That is why the "trans child" has become their primary focus, if children are transgender, than it is not something sexual, it is just a normal expression of their "authentic self" and has nothing to do with sexual arousal or fetishistic behavior. It blocks any discussion of transition as a form of gay conversion therapy. Even bringing up real concerns about children growing up to be adults who lack sexual function gets shut down with accusations that you're the pervert for caring that children have the opportunity to grow up and become adults who are capable of having fulfilling sex lives. This is the genius of the TRAs, they have made it impossible to discuss the real, problematic issues with transgenderism because they have conditioned people to believe that transgenderism has nothing to do with sexuality, and anyone who tries to demonstrate that is does gets shut down as a pervert.
Yeah, I know... I regret bringing it up. But since I had mentioned the historical situation of homosexuals (thinking the argument about homophobia playing into transgenderism will help liberals understand), and she then shot back that he is not gay, I slipped into mentioning Blanchard's findings. Without them, it's hard to counter the idea of "true trans". But I know that was a bad idea.
Now I wish I could explain that I think the situation with the current cohort is quite different (even though I believe that Blanchard's findings still play a role).
I will admit I have a much harder time understanding adult, straight men who identify as women as mainfesting anything other than autogynophelia, or if not autogynophelia, some other form of fetishistic behavior. I'm just not sure I understand what straight adult men are trying to cope with by identifying as female the way I understand what adult, straight women are trying to cope with by identifying as male. I just see some sort of cross dressing fetish, or humiliation fetish, if not full blown AGP.
I don't know what this young man's story is, and how long this has been going on. From what I've heard and seen in pictures, he seems like a sensitive, feminine type. He's vegan, which I think goes with trans as a political identity. I can imagine that someone like him could just be thinking of himself as feminine, and with transgenderism being promoted as a natural and healthy choice, he could just think it's an option that gives him meaning and community. (I know he hasn't had any surgery, and may not be on hormones either.) But of course I also think that this could be additionally fueled by some sort of autogynephilic desire. I don't necessarily think of autogynephilia as perverse or morally repugnant, and not necessarily misogynistic (contrary to what my sister now believes, I'm pretty liberal and non-judgmental).
What baffles me is how my niece can be attracted to that. That truly boggles my mind. But I guess she was just brought up seeing transness as totally normal. Years ago, she dated a girl who identified as a boy. But before this current relationship, she dated a totally average guy. Pansexual, I guess.
I think young women in particular are under a lot of social pressure to accept things they really aren't comfortable with sexually, whether that is the abusive, toxic sexuality of the Andrew Tates of the world (being choked, hit, spit on, anal sex, BDSM), accepting "transbians" as sexual partners, or being with a transman. It's the whole "being attracted to gender not genitals" and being "genderfluid". Young women are under a lot of pressure to conform their sexuality to whatever the male they are with wants. It may be that he seems "safe" compared to the young men who have been influenced by men like Andrew Tate. Maybe she's an onmi/pansexual, demiromantic, gender fluid/expansive nonlesbian.
@KateP I just wanted to acknowledge all this crap you going through all this. Write the letter, even if you don’t send it. And have hope that you and your sister will speak again.
This is a terrible time, but it can’t last forever.
Thank you, I appreciate it. I don't cope with this very well and start ruminating compulsively about it. I don't like arguments, but at the same time I can't stop myself from saying what I think.
I'm just very predisposed to heterodox ideas, very much like my father. Of course during that same conversation, my sister yelled at me that I sound like him. I said, yeah, I know, I'm his daughter, to which she replied "Have fun with that!". I did call him later that day to vent. He just said, you have to understand that she lives in that woke bubble, and it's like talking to a Jehovah's Witness! He recommended just giving it up, like he did a long time ago (they see each other but don't talk anything political).
I keep thinking about this article. I too have found framing trans-ideology as a religion VERY helpful. The tricky part, for me: are parents allowed to raise children in trans-ideology? Believe in sex flexibility? YES. Raise child as the opposite sex? MAYBE? Block their child's puberty? or Administer their child wrong-sex hormones? NO. IMO it's similar, but not the same as Christian Scientists withholding medical care. Thoughts?
After everything I went through fighting trans-ideology, I'm a strong believer in parental rights. I suppose the courts will have to draw the line.
I think the analogy still holds, we ban Female Genital Mutilation despite the fact that it is a religious practice. If an adult woman wants to undergo the procedure, she can, but you cannot do it to a child. You can raise a girl to think it is a practice required by God, you just can't have her undergo it while she is a minor. But I think the advatage to treating gender ideology like religious belief is that we can get it out of schools. I have tried making this argument to my school district, but people really don't get it (or they claim not to). I have said schools have no more right to tell my child they have a gender identity than to tell my child they have a soul, and the school has no more role in helping a child understand their "gender identity" than it does helping a child understand their religious identity. So far it has fallen on mostly deaf ears, but I am hopeful that more people will eventually come to understand and accept this framing of the issue. I am waiting for my district to roll out the opt-out process for gender identity lessons, because I plan on opting my children out based on the argument that the District is teaching the equivalent of a religious belief, which I do not share and do not want taught to my children. We'll see how it goes, it may very well end up in Court.
How about a statement like "married autogynophiles are violent to their wives sexually 39% of the time and physically 38% of the time, based on Ute Heggen's data, 74 women's testimonies." Does that clarify anything?