As a centrist, Biden/Harris-voting gay Democrat, I was dismayed by your recent op-ed on detransition. While it noted that some people regret gender transition and are harmed by it, the piece treated those accounts mainly as talking points used by Trump and his allies—conflating pushback against Trump with pushback against gender-critical activism. This framing misleads readers by erasing the existence of a centrist, gender-critical movement—one with no ties to and no sympathy for Trump—that has long raised concerns about poorly evidenced medical interventions lacking adequate safeguards.
By avoiding a frank examination of the science and lived experiences of detransitioners, the Times preserves a Left-versus-Right narrative that obscures the truth. Let a detransitioner harmed by “gender-affirming” medicine tell their own story, without political framing.
I wonder how many of those "nearly 1,000 people" stayed with the study from start to finish, and fully cooperated. Loss-to-follow-up is real, and it can affect results. However, for the sake of argument, let's accept McKinnon's work as reliable. The assertion he makes is:
"33 percent of participants, said they detransitioned because of an identity change, mental health-related factors and dissatisfaction with treatment. They were much more likely to express strong regret with the decision to transition. Some felt that they had not been adequately informed about the risks of medical treatments."
McKinnon further asserts:
"Nothing in my team’s research, or any other studies on detransition, should lead to the conclusion that policymakers ought to issue blanket bans on gender-affirming care..."
A few paragraphs later, he points out:
"Many young people experience gender flexibly, thinking about it in new ways that are often surprising to researchers, including me. Gender-questioning and less rigid expectations surrounding transition may also mean that some people feel more able to change course once they’ve started down one path."
So, my reading of McKinnon's own work is that he thinks that one-third of those who receive treatments will regret having done so for reasons unrelated to prejudice or whatever. Outside of that group there are people who may regret the experience simply because they no longer adhere to the same gender notion that brought them to treatment in the first place. He doesn't specify just how many those might be, but we can safely assume it would push the number of regretters above one-third. And yet McKinnon thinks none of this justifies "blanket bans." One has to wonder...what would?
He didn't say that one third of people treated for gender dysphoria regret in that way. He said that one third of the detransitioners that he surveyed fell into that category. He did a study of people who identified as detransitioners.
Thanks, Lisa. You have always been honest about your political leanings as well as your understanding of the great harms that gender-affirming care has had on people under 18 years of age. I am interested in your perspective on what is happening to the 18-25 year olds who pursue gender transformation. We know that many young people in this age range, despite having legal status as adults, do not yet have all the signs and assets of maturity.
Erica Anderson expressed concern about this cohort several years ago, because they wouldn't be covered by any bans or restrictions on minors. So, yes, were people actually looking to make reforms or reckon with what's happened—beyond bans—it would be vitally important to look at that group, too.
Most likely the Times and WAPO have signed on to the Trans Journalists' Association Style and Reportage Guide (or style guide, whatever they call it) which demands no reporting ever on detransitioners, trans widows (the ex wives of suddenly demanding, suddenly full-time crossdressing husbands) and others who are collateral damage from the transgender treatment industry. They deny the fact that many males who dropped into this rabbit hole have pornography addictions. Has the NY Times ever printed the phrase sissy hypno porn? I see the totalitarianism from the Left as far more dangerous than whatever objections Dems have about right leaning constituencies. Here's an excerpt from Behind the Looking Glass covering what the Times missed--meaning porn and sex addiction, promiscuity and debauchery.
I have been listening to the lectures of historian Sarah Paine a lot lately . . . she covers mainly the Asian-Pacific theatre of WWII history and stresses in her lectures the importance of FULLY understanding BOTH perspectives of any conflict. To do anything less is what she calls playing "half-court tennis," which she uses to metaphorically to describe the narrow, insular approach to strategy, where players focus only on their own side of the court without considering the overall game or their opponent's actions. I think this metaphor applies to how too many of those in positions of power on the Democrat/liberal/left-leaning side of things have been operating for a very long time (I first got wind of this after leaving college and having the real world, and a wider range of reading materials than my liberal bubble professors assigned, slap the Democrat out of me. Thanks also to Thomas Sowell's Vision of the Anointed, and Christina Sommers' Who Stole Feminism, and Shelby Steele's Content of Our Characters).
And so now, with the excesses of Gender Ideology, the Democrats (aided by a whole lot of Libertarians pulling the same "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" denialism semantics) have managed to "Jump the Shark" by guilting ordinary people, demanding that they "kindly" stop believing their eyes and ears and core instincts regarding human biology, triggering a final surge of metaphorical chickens to finally come home to roost.
As people like the deluded and over-educated "journalists" running the NYT continue failing to acknowledge that there are REAL REASONS that a high portion of our population NO LONGER TRUST the institutions or the experts who staff them, and consequently have turned to a strong-man populist who "says it like it is" and "gets things done," I feel that the big-picture decision-point for our entire country will depend on whether those more "revolutionary"-oriented folks who call for tearing down all our untrustworthy institutions continue to drown out the more circumspect who understand (as Sarah Paine does) that it takes a LONG time (generations of cultural evolution) for the institutions our civilization relies on to reach to the level of sophistication and effectiveness that they have before succumbing to corruption and bureaucratic bloat. But, as distasteful as that feels, we really do need to reform them, not abandon them, or we WILL LOSE the uniquely-robust democratic republic that was first of its kind in the world back when our founders established it. I fear, from the perspective of historians, the next several decades in the West are going to be extremely . . . interesting . . .
I agree with Lisa (and I’m paraphrasing) that liberals brought the current political nightmare on ourselves by not “checking” the unfalsifiable belief that a person can be born in the wrong body. And I agree with Heather Chapman in her comment here that (again paraphrasing) institutional change takes time. I thought MacKinnon’s NYT op-ed is useful for the long-game.
MacKinnon is doing interesting work. If interested, here’s a link to his Substack that includes a link to a recent webinar presentation about the study he refers to in the NYT piece. Research is different than political action and both are necessary for effective institutional change.
Watching the DARE Project webinar is really interesting. Earnest young people doing work they believe in. Let’s hope they keep on going ... and growing!
Also, re: the JMIR article, the mean age of subjects was 27 years old. My guess watching the webinar is a similar mean age of the research team. I’m 62. If I was 25 or 30 right now I could imagine being in the same, or at least adjacent, social circle.
Thanks for the links. I thought the JMIR article interesting re: how to get usable data samples via the internet and MacKinnon talks briefly about the methods section for the research project in the webinar.
Osborne’s piece is less useful than Lisa’s piece about the NYT op-ed in my opinion.
I learned from each of those pieces. I read the MacKinnon op-ed and was suspicious about the honesty of what was being presented. And I did wonder how McKinnon found the people to survey....
We shall see after the study is published and people like Leor Sapir, and Lisa Davis, and Jesse Singal and others have to say.
I just sent the Times this letter to the editor:
As a centrist, Biden/Harris-voting gay Democrat, I was dismayed by your recent op-ed on detransition. While it noted that some people regret gender transition and are harmed by it, the piece treated those accounts mainly as talking points used by Trump and his allies—conflating pushback against Trump with pushback against gender-critical activism. This framing misleads readers by erasing the existence of a centrist, gender-critical movement—one with no ties to and no sympathy for Trump—that has long raised concerns about poorly evidenced medical interventions lacking adequate safeguards.
By avoiding a frank examination of the science and lived experiences of detransitioners, the Times preserves a Left-versus-Right narrative that obscures the truth. Let a detransitioner harmed by “gender-affirming” medicine tell their own story, without political framing.
Oh my gosh that op-ed.
I wonder how many of those "nearly 1,000 people" stayed with the study from start to finish, and fully cooperated. Loss-to-follow-up is real, and it can affect results. However, for the sake of argument, let's accept McKinnon's work as reliable. The assertion he makes is:
"33 percent of participants, said they detransitioned because of an identity change, mental health-related factors and dissatisfaction with treatment. They were much more likely to express strong regret with the decision to transition. Some felt that they had not been adequately informed about the risks of medical treatments."
McKinnon further asserts:
"Nothing in my team’s research, or any other studies on detransition, should lead to the conclusion that policymakers ought to issue blanket bans on gender-affirming care..."
A few paragraphs later, he points out:
"Many young people experience gender flexibly, thinking about it in new ways that are often surprising to researchers, including me. Gender-questioning and less rigid expectations surrounding transition may also mean that some people feel more able to change course once they’ve started down one path."
So, my reading of McKinnon's own work is that he thinks that one-third of those who receive treatments will regret having done so for reasons unrelated to prejudice or whatever. Outside of that group there are people who may regret the experience simply because they no longer adhere to the same gender notion that brought them to treatment in the first place. He doesn't specify just how many those might be, but we can safely assume it would push the number of regretters above one-third. And yet McKinnon thinks none of this justifies "blanket bans." One has to wonder...what would?
Exactly. It's pretty damning research.
He didn't say that one third of people treated for gender dysphoria regret in that way. He said that one third of the detransitioners that he surveyed fell into that category. He did a study of people who identified as detransitioners.
Right...I should have been clear about that. The study was just of detransitioners.
Thanks, Lisa. You have always been honest about your political leanings as well as your understanding of the great harms that gender-affirming care has had on people under 18 years of age. I am interested in your perspective on what is happening to the 18-25 year olds who pursue gender transformation. We know that many young people in this age range, despite having legal status as adults, do not yet have all the signs and assets of maturity.
Erica Anderson expressed concern about this cohort several years ago, because they wouldn't be covered by any bans or restrictions on minors. So, yes, were people actually looking to make reforms or reckon with what's happened—beyond bans—it would be vitally important to look at that group, too.
Most likely the Times and WAPO have signed on to the Trans Journalists' Association Style and Reportage Guide (or style guide, whatever they call it) which demands no reporting ever on detransitioners, trans widows (the ex wives of suddenly demanding, suddenly full-time crossdressing husbands) and others who are collateral damage from the transgender treatment industry. They deny the fact that many males who dropped into this rabbit hole have pornography addictions. Has the NY Times ever printed the phrase sissy hypno porn? I see the totalitarianism from the Left as far more dangerous than whatever objections Dems have about right leaning constituencies. Here's an excerpt from Behind the Looking Glass covering what the Times missed--meaning porn and sex addiction, promiscuity and debauchery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odCN_GZaRDw
I have been listening to the lectures of historian Sarah Paine a lot lately . . . she covers mainly the Asian-Pacific theatre of WWII history and stresses in her lectures the importance of FULLY understanding BOTH perspectives of any conflict. To do anything less is what she calls playing "half-court tennis," which she uses to metaphorically to describe the narrow, insular approach to strategy, where players focus only on their own side of the court without considering the overall game or their opponent's actions. I think this metaphor applies to how too many of those in positions of power on the Democrat/liberal/left-leaning side of things have been operating for a very long time (I first got wind of this after leaving college and having the real world, and a wider range of reading materials than my liberal bubble professors assigned, slap the Democrat out of me. Thanks also to Thomas Sowell's Vision of the Anointed, and Christina Sommers' Who Stole Feminism, and Shelby Steele's Content of Our Characters).
And so now, with the excesses of Gender Ideology, the Democrats (aided by a whole lot of Libertarians pulling the same "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" denialism semantics) have managed to "Jump the Shark" by guilting ordinary people, demanding that they "kindly" stop believing their eyes and ears and core instincts regarding human biology, triggering a final surge of metaphorical chickens to finally come home to roost.
As people like the deluded and over-educated "journalists" running the NYT continue failing to acknowledge that there are REAL REASONS that a high portion of our population NO LONGER TRUST the institutions or the experts who staff them, and consequently have turned to a strong-man populist who "says it like it is" and "gets things done," I feel that the big-picture decision-point for our entire country will depend on whether those more "revolutionary"-oriented folks who call for tearing down all our untrustworthy institutions continue to drown out the more circumspect who understand (as Sarah Paine does) that it takes a LONG time (generations of cultural evolution) for the institutions our civilization relies on to reach to the level of sophistication and effectiveness that they have before succumbing to corruption and bureaucratic bloat. But, as distasteful as that feels, we really do need to reform them, not abandon them, or we WILL LOSE the uniquely-robust democratic republic that was first of its kind in the world back when our founders established it. I fear, from the perspective of historians, the next several decades in the West are going to be extremely . . . interesting . . .
I agree with Lisa (and I’m paraphrasing) that liberals brought the current political nightmare on ourselves by not “checking” the unfalsifiable belief that a person can be born in the wrong body. And I agree with Heather Chapman in her comment here that (again paraphrasing) institutional change takes time. I thought MacKinnon’s NYT op-ed is useful for the long-game.
MacKinnon is doing interesting work. If interested, here’s a link to his Substack that includes a link to a recent webinar presentation about the study he refers to in the NYT piece. Research is different than political action and both are necessary for effective institutional change.
https://theonepercentdetrans.substack.com/p/heres-a-recent-presentation-from
Yes, it's movement forward, as I wrote in Unherd. But, like, an inch forward...
Yes, yes! I just read your UnHerd piece.
Watching the DARE Project webinar is really interesting. Earnest young people doing work they believe in. Let’s hope they keep on going ... and growing!
This is how the groups to be sampled were selected for that study. It's a very short read. Thoughts?
https://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e63252
I also saw this:
https://www.thedistancemag.com/p/the-genderwoo-cult-is-changing-their
Also, re: the JMIR article, the mean age of subjects was 27 years old. My guess watching the webinar is a similar mean age of the research team. I’m 62. If I was 25 or 30 right now I could imagine being in the same, or at least adjacent, social circle.
Thanks for the links. I thought the JMIR article interesting re: how to get usable data samples via the internet and MacKinnon talks briefly about the methods section for the research project in the webinar.
Osborne’s piece is less useful than Lisa’s piece about the NYT op-ed in my opinion.
dd: what did you think?
I learned from each of those pieces. I read the MacKinnon op-ed and was suspicious about the honesty of what was being presented. And I did wonder how McKinnon found the people to survey....
We shall see after the study is published and people like Leor Sapir, and Lisa Davis, and Jesse Singal and others have to say.