I hate to do this, because I do believe in free speech, but I'm going to block the troll. It's really great for us to have this opportunity to observe, up close and personal, how a person who's only ingested activist talking point (alas, which are reprinted in NYT) processes information. But we've passed the tipping point and people are giving the troll a lot of air, and not being able to free themselves. I have him muted, but I've had requests to end his reign. So, sigh, I will.
“Others’ disagreement doesn’t affect your existence.”
“Gender dysphoria is real, but can be managed. 80% of those who suffer eventually desist: don’t close that door, or allow others to talk you into closing it.”
“Irreversible medicalization isn’t a good or ethical first treatment for mental health issues, and talk therapy isn’t conversion therapy.”
Hi there, this is false Liz the 80% statistic was invented by anti-trans activists and is not supported by any medical literature whatsoever.
Also, talk therapy is a prerequisite in getting approved for puberty blocker and HRT. There’s nothing wrong with talk therapy, however what anti-trans religious activists such as the person writing this article means is that they indeed want conversion therapy, which is to convince kids with gender dysphoria that they do not actually have gender dysphoria. We don’t do this with any other condition. We don’t try to convince kids with autism that they are not autistic, just because there are religious extremists ideologically opposed to human and civil rights for people with autism.
It's nice to have a believer here, Jason, and you're welcome to be here. But if you're sending links like Rafferty's statement well...alas, the medical orgs are advocacy groups. Every systematic review has come to the same conclusion. Here's a great fact check of Rafferty. You're welcome to keep leaving these comments, but my hope is that you'll be open to the idea that some of what you've been told is true is in fact misinformation. Or even disinformation. You might want to read more about the history of the idea of gender identity. I also suggest Michael Biggs work on the Dutch protocol. https://www.jamescantor.org/uploads/6/2/9/3/62939641/cantor_fact-check_of_aap.pdf
She uses religious terminology and slurs, and this article implies strong dogmatic support for the gender critical religion, so it seems she is religious, or is at least a close ideological ally to the gender critical religion
Believer? I’m not sure what you mean? Scientific reality doesn’t require belief.
I also linked a medical study, and can gladly link more, which proves unequivocally that the “80%” statistic was made up by anti-trans activists. Every systemic review has come to the same conclusion.
I am of course *always* open to medical studies and scientific information. I would hope you’d be too, but I fear that is not the case.
And of course, I reject the assertion that medical/scientific with results you ideologically disapprove of are “misinformation”. That’s not what misinformation is. And it’s certainly not disinformation. A bit ironic you level the disinformation accusation at me when a number of people have been peddling anti-trans disinformation in this comment section, including the claim that Sweden and Finland banned HRT and Puberty blockers, which is demonstrably untrue.
I’m fairly well educated on the topic of gender identity (and transsexualism more broadly). I will of course look at your link and get back to you.
I usually resist the urge to do the "someone is wrong on the internet" thing, but I guess I'm feeling weak today.
Many people here will recognize that at least one of your "anti-trans activists" who "invented" that statistic is supposed to be Ken Zucker. They will also be very familiar with his work and views and experience at the hands of activists, and so find your description of him completely unpersuasive. One does not magically become an "anti-trans activist" by being labeled as such by Transgender Map, not even if they manage to get their own goofy caricature.
Anyway, you don't need anyone find the links to his or others' research on desistance for you; if you managed to find this article you can Google it as well as anyone. You may not like him or his research or agree with what it says. But it's out there, existing, independent of your declaration that numbers on high rates of desistence are "not supported by any medical literature whatsoever". So you can stop saying that now.
I wouldn’t call Ken Zucker an anti-trans activist, as he doesn’t really engage much in actual anti-trans activism at all. I would only call him a discredited former expert whose theories have been dismissed by medical consensus and who engaged in unethical behaviour in the past.
It is indeed true that there is no exiting or independent medical literature indicating that there are high rates of detransition. Quite the opposite. There is a *tonne* of studies showing that detransition is unbelievably rare, and even in cases where it does exist, it’s usually not a result of misdiagnosis. Don’t take my word for it at all. By all means, look it up. You won’t though.
Yeah, this is a good example of why I usually don't do this kind of thing online. Now we have topic whack-a-mole: Kenneth Zucker's history with activists, research on desistance, and NOW research on detransition (believe it or not, yeah, I've read the whole Bustos meta-analysis and every paper that went into it I could get for free. I'm familiar with that literature and the flaws with it). You can find plenty of good alternative perspectives to yours on these topics if you want. No need for me or anyone else here to summarize them for you.
So I'll leave you with an observation based on the comments you've left here; you seem to have effectively shielded yourself from taking seriously any person or group you disagree with by defining them out of being worthy of your consideration. Don't like what Lisa says? She's a "religious extremist" (this is utterly non-sensical to anyone who's remotely familiar with her) who has "been entirely radicalized by the gender critical religion". Don't like what Genspect does? They're "an anti-trans religious activist organization". SEGM is "a militant religious activist group". And you've defined your preferred language as "neutral" and anything else as a "slur" and of "the extreme far right". I could go on.
Notice the linguistic protective shell you've built for yourself and how it de-humanizes the people you've chosen to interact with here. And then consider the implications of that on any chance you have of coming to understand them or any of the legitimate, good-faith concerns they have that lead them to see this issue differently than you. But perhaps that's not what you came here to do.
Talk therapy isn't a prerequisite, it's "recommended" and entirely optional. Also expensive. Frequently skipped. Requiring talk therapy as a prerequisite is"gatekeeping." Check the WPATH SOC 8.
Yes and often we’ve seen from the whistleblowers who tell us that often a single letter was required after just one session - and if they had concerns they were basically told to shut up or get out🤷♀️🤦♀️It’s a profit making industry - cue the Netflix series about the latest medical scandal, similar to ‘Painkillers’ et Al
In the US, people can walk out with a prescription after a single consult of less than an hour. Read Jamie Reed's whistleblower report. The WPATH SOC8 do not support talk therapy as a prerequisite. Whistleblowers for Tavistock reported similar things.
I cannot speak to the laws in your province. If it's true that a higher standard is held, I am glad to hear it. But as I was referencing the GLOBAL standards and not your province standards. The accusation of misinformation is perhaps a bit overwrought.
Well clearly I am not American, and given the for-profit nature of the US healthcare system I can’t say I’m exactly surprised that you can just walk into a doctors office and demand a prescription to anything so long as you pay for it out of pocket.
Jamie Reed was discredited. She was caught in multiple lies. Even her own ideological allies turned against her when it was revealed most of what she said was not true. This was reported on extensively. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. It was fairly big news.
The US is unusual in a lot of ways (where I live for example, the Prime Minister has absolutely no authority whatsoever to decide what healthcare a person can or cannot have, whereas in the US Trump has threatened to withhold funding and shut shown any hospitals that treat trans patients that are minors). Most of Western Europe, Canada, Australia and NZ etc have healthcare systems that work very differently
If you're going to start discrediting whistle blowers, there's a LONG list. Is your assertion that they're all lying? To what purpose? Seems like a bit of a conspiracy theory to me.
Just because they don’t align with your ideological view doesn’t make them “anti trans”. That’s not how science works. (Real science, not pseudoscience that y’all like to trot out.)
Feel free to respond with counter studies, and then we can compare reliability, methods, etc., instead of you falling back on ad hominems.
As for religious activism, it is to laugh. I’m a die-hard antitheist, even been to skeptics conferences before the assholes came out due to Elevatorgate.
Finally, autism? Fuck, you lot will try to appropriate anything, won’t you? Any port in a storm, I suppose.
You’re correct that autistic children aren’t talked out of being autistic (pro tip: neither are dysphoric children). Unlike dysphoric kids, autistic ones have an actual physiological condition; thinking you’re the opposite sex (or “align more fully with”) isn’t a medical condition, it’s a psychological one.
Hi there Canary, the first link you sent me is not a scientific study. It’s a link to Genspect, an extremist anti-trans religious activist organization.
I have no ideological view. I’m only a materialist, and I only support accepted science. Views that oppose scientific reality in due to a religious objection to transgender people is indeed an anti-trans view.
I will of course respond with a counter study. I’ll need to do some googling.
You’re an adherent of the gender critical religion. It’s a religious denomination borne directly out of the TradCath anti-gender movement, which was in turn directly influenced my Nazi phrenological theories about race and gender. You can’t be an anti-theist while adhering to the dogma of a pseudoscientific religious cult. Being sceptical is fine. Being skeptical of accepted science is generally less fine, especially when it is ideologically motivated.
Also, what? Where did you see me appropriating anything? I’m not sure you know what the word appropriation means. That’s okay.
And yes, you cannot talk a child out of being autistic, just as you cannot talk a trans child out of being dysphoric. And gender dysphoria is absolutely a physiological condition, just as much as autism is. It’s laughably ridiculous to say that it’s not a physiological condition. Psychiatric conditions are physiological. Ironically, the prevailing evidence also strongly suggests that both gender dysphoria and autism have neurological origins (the latter is beyond debate).
Lastly, trans people don’t “believe themselves to be the opposite sex”. They experience gender dysphoria, in which their biosocial sex is incongruous with the rest of their phenotype. The accepted treatment is medical transition, to align phenotypical sex characteristics with gender identity. If trans people “believed themselves to be the opposite sex”, they wouldn’t transition.
Yes, it’s from Genspect. And if you had any intellectual integrity, you might have pressed “expand” and seen the referenced details, complete with link that you can access yourself.
But I realize how frightening “expanding” anything can be to a self-identified “materialist”.
Now, for being unbroken to any ideology, you sure seem committed to calling gender critical positions a religion. It’s not. I’m a fully recovered Catholic, haven’t attended mass since my confirmation. And a physicist by education. Again, you self-identify as being ideologucally uncaptured, and that’s fine: doesn’t directly hurt anyone, though you should consider how it stunts your intellectual development. The Nazi allusion was a nice effort, but you really didn’t stick the landing.
Appropriation: your attempt to legitimize medicalization of a psychological condition (gender dysphoric) by force teaming it with a physiological one (autism)!is morally bankrupt. Do you know what those words mean?
Once again: no one talking anyone out of being gender dysphoric. It really does exist. Talk therapy is intended to address the discomfort and the beliefs that “transitioning” (from what to what, *precisely*, Jason) will cure that discomfort. (It doesn’t, reliably)
Of course all human thoughts are physiological in origin - we’re all just meat puppets (you could read my one and only post, if you cared to expand your thinking).
But the difference between a physiological and a purely psychological pathology is that the former has somatic correlates outside the brain - it’s reflective of a non-brain condition - while the latter is happening inside the brain, and only in the brain.
But if you want to provide a suitable study that pins down the neural correlates of gender dysphoria, we could have a discussion at least (hint: doesn’t exist).
If only your characterization of trans-identifying individuals didn’t ignore all the instances of people who do believe that they are transitioning their bodies (via surgeries and exogenous hormones) to have them match their brain sex, you might come away with a nugget of learning. But your arguments are as incoherent and incomprehensible as the ideology you seek to uphold - nay, enforce!
At any rate, having *already* said it with science, I look forward to your trenchant analysis of … what I already sent.
And I’ll take a look at your link. Karnak predicts a WPATH circle jerk, but maybe you have something I’ve not yet seen.
Good luck to you, you brave and good “materialist” 😂🤣😂
I didn’t bother. Genspect is an extremist religious organizations. If you’d linked me to the Taliban’s website or the website of the Westboro Baptist Church I similarly would have dismissed it with prejudice.
Well it is a religion. It has an official dogma, a standard belief system that includes supernatural elements, was an explicit offshoot of a religious movement etc. Granted I admit the definition of religion is debated among sociologists, but the gender critical religion does fit the bill in my eyes.
You should google the Catholic anti-gender movement. And the influence of Nazi phrenology on it and the Gender critical ideology. It’s pretty fascinating stuff, in a horrible and disturbing way. It’s not a “nice effort” either. The gender critical ideology very explicitly is descended from Nazi phrenology. Even avowed gender criticals, including Helen Joyce, have made no secret of this. It’s not an obscure fact.
I wouldn’t say I describe myself as being ideologically uncaptured in every capacity. Just that materialism and objective reality and science inform my beliefs.
There’s no such thing as “trans identifying individuals”. This is religious terminology invented by adherents to faiths which reject the objective existence of gender dysphoria. It’s also a slur, so the civilized among us try to avoid the term out of basic respect, even if we have religious beliefs. The rest of that patagraph descends into unintelligible ramblings, so I’ll just move on, but I’ll say just that science is not an ideology that needs to be enforced. No matter how tyrannically members of your religion attempt to enforce your religious beliefs on others, it will never work. The Russians, the Taliban, various Islamist regimes, Trump and the GC’s in the UK are all attempting to mandate being trans out of existence. It simply will not work. Even if you succeed in killing or imprisoning every single trans person alive today, in a generation there will be the exact same number of trans people. Even that is a long shot. In dark times, people go stealth to protect themselves. Trans women will continue to use women’s bathrooms/lockerrooms, continue to play on women’s sports teams, they’ll just do so clandestinely, as they did in the 20th century. Families of trans kids in countries that have banned gender affirming care move to better places, or get healthcare on the grey market. Your cult will fade, but people will endure.
I have other links BTW. There’s great thing about taking a stance in accordance with science is that there’s a lot of data to buttress you.
And you didn’t say anything with science. Again, Genspect is a religious activist group. They do not acknowledge science.
So, for the book I'm working on, Jason, I did a lot of research about how Genspect was formed. It's really a fascinating story. I'd suggest you put aside your own biases, and dismissing information because you don't like the source it came from, and being open to seeing these issues in a new way. Read Cantor's fact check of the AAP statement. Read Biggs' history of the Dutch Protocol. Read the Hannah Barnes book Time to Think. Report back to us after!
(Again, you’ll have to click a button to see the link to the full paper - “expand” that section, so to speak)
But here’s the conclusion:
“Importantly, there are no prospective longitudinal studies with appropriate comparator groups assessing the impact of social transition on mental health or gender-related outcomes for children/adolescents. Professionals working in the area of gender identity and those seeking support should be aware of the absence of robust evidence of the benefits or harms of social transition for children and adolescents.”
Having read your linked study, guess what? I concede! At least I concede that it appears to be true that there are no studies which appear to show that social transition alone has any effect on mental health outcomes for trans children (the adolescents had more mixed results, according to one study included in your link).
Still don’t see how anyone can police that though, as you just can’t forbid people from wearing certain clothes, of having a certain name or sporting a certain haircut. More, as i suspected, the link doesn’t actually say that there are any negative implications included in any studies. Just that there are no studies at all, and the few that exist are inconclusive
…did you not see that there are dozens of linked studies, including ones that explicitly support what I said? For someone who got mad at me for not reading a post to a religious activist site, you sure were quick to reject a link which had a laundry list of medical studies included.
Social transition is a fairly neutral act. What exactly is the false belief it can assert?
I will take a look at your second link. Hopefully it includes studies and is not from Genspect or SEGM or the Westboro Baptist Church.
If however the quote is accurate, my rebuttal will be this: how does one mandate minors not socially transition? You cannot police what clothes people wear or what name they call themselves. Even kids. It violates free speech/free expression. More, even if you could, you’d have to have a very VERY good reason, and a lack of studies showing any benefits (or even drawbacks) to social transition for kids with gender dysphoria is not a reason.
Hey Jason, if you still think talk therapy is a prerequisite, go check out the website of Seattle Children's Hospital Gender Clinic. It's laid out in black and white that they only offer medicalization and they do NOT offer or require therapy. It has a list of "referrals" for people who want therapy. Top of the list is: the Amaze video series.
Are you claiming that no one feels discomfort about the “alignment” of their bodies to gender stereotypes?
That discomfort is real.
Its causes are up for debate: I don’t think it’s a mis-alignment of anything but their bodily self-image and reality (literally: it’s all in their minds).
But the reality of that discomfort is no more in question than the reality that anorexics are similarly afflicted to the point of starving themselves to death.
Personally, I’d like to see both psychology (a social “science”) and psychiatry (a medical “science”) get themselves better grounded in the physical sciences that underpin their purported fields of expertise (or should that be “purported fields of purported expertise” perhaps?).
People suffering with mental illnesses (myself included) deserve better care.
But that doesn’t render everything that either field of study does useless (or worse, dangerous):
I’ve benefited from the efforts of talk therapy, and I’ve benefited from ECT — immensely, and I’m grateful for it, as I feel I’ve gotten a chance to live my life unburdened by past trauma.
Better guardrails, better enforcement of those guardrails, and holding purveyors of quackery to legal account would all help tremendously.
But wouldn’t agree with tossing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
However, I don’t think that’s particularly effective when one’s own mind produces an unreliable narrative: the value of trained guidance and support in discriminating the reliability of one’s own voice(s)*, as well as in guiding one’s thoughts in productive directions, cannot be so easily dismissed.
*As a topic upon which I intend to expand further in future, I’ll simply say that “spoken” and “heard” language - even one’s own,, and whether auditory, visual, or even tactile in nature - has a profoundly different effect on the receiving mind than internally and unexpressed cognition. As such, there is again tremendous value to be found in guided practices that enable one to better manage which particular voices and thoughts are best expressed for autoconsumption and concomitant autoreprogramming, and which are better left unexpressed so as to reduce their negative cognitive reinforcement impacts.
In short, language which is both physically expressed by one mind and experienced by another (or itself) is the original and ultimate “hacking”’tool, as it literally allows the meat hardware that is our brains to be remotely reprogrammed: that’s the core of learning, again thanks to our social evolution, and as such resting atop a foundation of socially-deceloped linguistic potentials.
In terms of spiky’s misguided “forest” gedanken experiment,the solitary existence they envision would again stunt brain development, this time the linguistic centres, and thus eliminate virtually any potential for self-talk to produce useful insights or positive results.
your own narrative is the only truly reliable one. here's a neat trick: i'll use things from "psychology" to show that "psychological help" is a self-defeating notion.
1) "psychologists" themselves have found that having an "internal locus of control" - ie, feeling that you are in control of & responsible for your own actions - is correlated with better outcomes on every metric.
2) an "external locus of control" is likewise correlated with worse outcomes.
3) seeking "psychological help" in and of itself requires externalizing your locus of control.
4) seeking "psychological help" is thus inherently "psychologically damaging."
>Are you claiming that no one feels discomfort about the “alignment” of their bodies to gender stereotypes?
I am claiming that everyone feels such discomfort, and that it is a natural part of being human -- because what is unnatural is the stereotype. It wouldn't exist in a forest. You would -- and you could exist however you liked.
I assert further that all of that "therapy" time would have been more productively, constructively, and healthfully spent reading a damn book. A GOOD book -- an easy selection criterion* is to pick one from before "psychology" dominated every other damn thought & before its innumerable coinings were half the damn linguistic currency.
Would you believe that people used to turn to *art* to better understand themselves & other people? Art, of all things...they must have been mad!
Good thing we have sanity down to a science. It's going so well. We're only...*checks notes*...ruled by a moron whose main public opposition is maniacally committed to child castration.
The wonders of PSYCHOLOGY!
*e: made properly singular -- one mustn't fudge one's grammar just because it's the internet.
Wow, spiky, tell me more about how you’re not a survivor of horrific childhood trauma.
I appreciate your commitment to proper grammar; beyond that, I find your response to be substantially lacking on a number of fronts.
I’ve read a damn library’s worth of good books; there’s even some great ones post-Freud, if you’re into the physical sciences. Such as, for example, JS Bell’s Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics - a modern classic on What Is and What Is Not real.
“I am claiming that everyone feels such discomfort, and that it is a natural part of being human -- because what is unnatural is the stereotype. It wouldn't exist in a forest. You would -- and you could exist however you liked.”
You are absolutely correct that gender stereotypes are the core of the problem that is gender dysphoria. IMHO that’s the crux of the radfem GC perspective, with which I agree wholeheartedly: the entire concept of “gender” is a scourge, about which we as beings capable of rational thought should all be critical.
It’s cute that you seem to think that waving a wand to eliminate those stereotypes (a) can happen in Reality, and (b) that your facile “understanding” of gender dysphoria can be extended to all psychological conditions, such as depression.
I counterclaim that “exist[ing] in a forest” you’d be likely to suffer from a whole suite of different psychological aberrations: our minds are the products of millions of years of evolution as social animals, and socialization is as key to good mental health as the absence of gender stereotypes, maybe even *more* key. The recently-reported BEIP outcomes certainly seem to support this counterclaim: see “Romania’s Abandoned Children: The Effects of Early Profound Psychosocial Deprivation on the Course of Human Development” (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10977996/).
In light of these realities, I deem your arguments around “exist[ing] in a forest” both risible and irresponsible.
Furthermore, your comments about the value of art hold a grain of truth, but also lay bare your privilege: many who suffer psychological disorders are in no more of a position to throw themselves into artistic pursuits than they are to find themselves rescued by your fantasy of eliminating gender.
Finally, *you* may be ruled by an insane “moron”, but the US isn’t the entirety of the world, spiky. I’m not ruled in any way by the moron to whom you refer, anymore than our national men’s hockey team is ruled over by yours. While all 🇨🇦political parties who are fit to form governments - federally or provincially - are similarly captured by gender ideology, their other policies are largely thoughtful, compassionate, and effective.
In summary, I find your response to be vacuous, riddled with errors, and worthy of dismissal as being the product of someone as metaphorically brain dead as the stillborn baby with which you conclude your screed.
Other than that, I very much enjoyed the play.
e: maybe try reading this for additional insight into why your response is both so telling & so unworthy of serious consideration:
Fun fact: According to every definition, almost everyone who grew up with access to the internet has "horrific childhood trauma."
Riddle me this: if being shown pornographical content by an adult at a prepubescent age would be considered not just traumatic but in fact justiciable sexual abuse, and almost everyone who grew up in the last 20 years has seen at least a pornographical banner ad or two if they had any internet all, how are we not all abuse victims?
It takes less than a wand to eliminate those stereotypes, by the way: it takes merely a thought. You refuse to think that thought, and you refuse to actually live according to the principles you espouse.
Gender is not real, and therefore neither is "gender dysphoria" -- "dysphoria," in the sense of acute discomfort with one's appearance, is somewhat of a useful term, but it has nothing to do with "gender," and I would venture to say that teen girls who starve themselves into anemia & even death have it far worse than either of us. Wishing you looked like the other sex rather than just skinny doesn't make it special.
Do you want to know how blind you are? You don't even get that you're talking to me twice.
As someone who suffered alongside my mother and sister abuse at the hands of my father that I’d never wish upon even my *worst* enemy, you can seriously GO FUCK YOURSELF - sideways, with a live porcupine, in fact.
However many of you there are.
You’re both an idiot and an asshole, though I’m sure those who behold your face have a hard time telling which is which.
Citations, please. Have you seen the Swedish film, Trans Train? I know from a detransitioner in Finland that they are doing psychotherapy and physio therapy for patients who present with cross-sex ideation. A study in Finland found a much higher rate of inpatient hospital stays in the post-surgery years. Look up the Swedish Study of Death Records, Dhejne, et al, 2011. Post op natal females were 40 times higher likelihood of committing suicide, natal males 19 times higher death by suicide. These were patients who had the surgeries from 1973-2003, a statistically significant number. They were age and income matched with both same sex and opposite sex Swedes who were also deceased. See segm.org for all of the studies.
Don’t know what the Swedish study you’re referring to has anything to do with trans healthcare for minors. It appears to be about sex reassignment surgery and post surgical suicidal ideation, which is a common after-effect of all surgery.
Lastly, SEGM is an anti-trans religious activist organization. It is not a medical institution. It can perform no studies.
Post surgical completed suicides, the Swedish Death Records Study is, not ideation. You don't think 40 times more for natal females is just awful and a total failure for women trying to 'live as men?" This means for every one Swedish woman who took her own life, 40 Swedish women who think they are men took their lives. It is death records, completed deaths. Segm doesn't perform studies. It lists the research published around the world. You think women should risk infertility, liver cancer, pulmonary embolism and heart attacks as if the testosterone is like an Advil? Look up Chloe Cole, Luca Hein, Maddy Edwards, Kiera Bell, Laura Becker, Cat Cattinson, Prisha Moseley, Erin Brewer, Cristina Hineman, for a start. These are women, mostly young, mostly put on the trans train in their teens. Most had been sexually assaulted. Then look up Simon Amaya Price. Then watch Behind the Looking Glass, the only documentary about women in my category, trans widows. I keep the only data in the world on our experiences. Over 34% sexually assaulted by lingerie-wearing husband, before she got out. I wasn't. I was merely defamed and had to work 3 jobs while my tech COO ex husband lied about his employment. Currently retired from Gallery Systems, current fully owns an NYC co-op apt. worth 3M. He refused to particpate in the therapy after our 9 year old son said he wanted to kill himself. I could go on, but I see there's a new contingent of "advocates" here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frffv2sB8zE
Again, post surgical suicide (and suicidal ideation) is sadly common after all surgery. Curiously, if I’m not mistaken, I believe knee surgery has an unusually high post-surgical suicide rate for some reason.
Not sure what your second sentence means at all.
Your study didn’t say anything about “women who think they are men”. People suffering from a delusion that they are already living as a gender which they’re not would not be able to get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and would not be able to access any gender affirming care, much less surgery, which is the very last stage of sex reassignment. Either that link is a hoax that is blatantly lying, or you misunderstood it.
Indeed, SEGM doesn’t perform studies. They’re merely a militant religious activist group that opposes science.
Androgens increase risk for certain diseases. Both cis and trans men have much higher rates of heart conditions due to their male physiology. That’s part of informed consent that is told to patients before they undergo sex change. On the flip side, cis and trans women are MUCH more likely than men to get breast cancer. Again, a consequence of female physiology. Trans women undergoing male-to-female transition are warned of that. Post-op trans women also have very high likelihoods of bacterial vaginosis in the first year after vaginoplasty.
I’ve only ever heard of Chloe Cole, a very young religious convert to fundamentalist Christianity and who is paid exorbitant sums of money by far right religious organizations to decry healthcare for trans people.
Crossdressing has nothing whatsoever to do with gender dysphoria or identity.
I’m not sure what your trans husband has to do with anything at all. Also, you insinuate that your former partner is both alive and dead at the same time
Well where are you getting that data from as the Uk gave only just dropped the prescriptions for puberty blockers? As in mid December 3024 - After the Cass report, which debunked the suicide myth…
The UK banned puberty blockers early last year. it was only made permanent recently. The massive rise in suicides which the NHS attempted to cover up occurred much earlier.
You are right that the Cass Review was debunked though. It’s been condemned as pseudoscience by every medical association pretty much on the planet.
Wouldn't be surprised if all major medical associations have "debunked" the Cass report ... not because the report is unreliable, but because the medical associations are completely captured, corrupt, agents of medical gaslighting. Tragically .. many similarities with gender "medicine" and the covid response ..pushing things known to be unsafe, claiming certainty they're safe, and militantly refusing dialogue / critique from those who don't agree ...
You’re just spewing propaganda - I live in the uk, this simply isn’t true - you have no facts or data, you’re simply making stuff up so there’s no point in engaging with you… 😆🤷♀️
Whether you live there or not is irrelevant. Your mistaken. The ban happened back under Sunak. That’s an objective fact. It was made permanent by Streeting recently, but the ban was in place for over a year, soon after the Cass review was first released. Late 2023 I believe.
I have linked multiple studies in this comment section. Nobody here seems to be interested in scientific facts though.
Word soup, you keep claiming this but show nothing🤷♀️living here and having an interest in the subject means you have your ear to the ground, with journalist and medical friends and family members - all this talk of suicides is utter rubbish… The biggest news here is female nurses taking the organisation to court for them being expected to get changed in front of men - men with penises that are probably just AGP fetishists - since when has public policy been set around people’s fetishes..? 🤷♀️🤦♀️
Speaking as someone who is basically pro-trans (I would describe myself as *moderate* pro-trans)—presumably an unusual voice in this comment section—I have a suggestion which I would hope that you will find supportive.
I agree with much of what you say here (even if we disagree about the ultimate value of what the U.S. government is doing now); these are good things to say. But I disagree with one of them: that we should tell trans kids that they aren't hated (or shouldn't tell them that they are, same thing). Because they are hated.
I do not—repeat, NOT—think that this is true of you, or of the gender critical movement as a whole. I know that you have good faith objections to a lot of trans activist goals, and that you are motivated by sincere concern for the children involved (as well as by other factors, like commitment to truth as you see it and concern for women's spaces). I admire your sincerity and regret that my side (if I may call it thus) has tried so hard to shut down debate; it was the wrong thing to do.
But not *everyone* on your side is so well motivated. There are, in fact, a lot of people who *are* motivated by hate. The anti-trans side (not the best term, but I don't know what else to call it (I'm open to suggestions)) has been an alliance of gender critical feminists of good will, classical liberals who dislike the anti-liberal tactics of trans extremists... *and* actual transphobes. And it is the third category that is actually *in power* in the United States.
I know people on my side would disagree that any of you are in good faith; I think they are wrong. But I hope you can see that there are people on your side who are *not*. I would suggest a couple (not infallible, but useful) tells: those who are also anti-gay and anti-lesbian (say, e.g.., Matt Walsh); those who express visceral disgust for trans people; those who have no concern for the well-fare of trans people (or, you might say, people who consider themselves trans). People who use slurs like "tranny", repeating it just to express disdain or disgust. I think those people *are* motivated by hate (as well as disgust); and, again, they are the ones who are now in power: those who are anti-gay as well as anti-trans, those who mock and jeer rather than try to help.
Those are not you, nor (I presume) most of your readers. But they have been, in this fight, your allies. I am not saying that you were wrong to ally with them; every struggle brings together disparate viewpoints. But now that you're winning, you have to ask yourself who you rode to victory with, and what they are doing. And, I would hope, join trans people in standing up to them—if only to preserve gay and lesbian rights, which are also now at threat.
Acknowledging all this would not only be (in my view) the moral thing to do; it would also *increase your credibility with trans kids*. If you say precisely what you suggest to them, then they may well not listen, because you are saying one thing that they know to be false: that they are not hated. They, at least, see the hatred in your allies. Too often, I admit, they mistake your genuine concern for that hatred. But they are not wrong to see that it does exist. If you deny this, well, they won't believe anything you say. Maybe if you acknowledge it—and especially if you stand with them against it—they will be more likely to listen to the rest.
So I would suggest you say: you are not as threatened as you believe; you are stronger than you think; you can endure this and flourish in life. But you ARE hated. And although we do not share your ideology, and although we in fact do share some beliefs with those who hate you, we will nevertheless do all in our power to protect you from the *genuine* hatred that you do, in fact, face now.
I think it would be a stronger message. And a truer one.
I very much appreciate you participating in this discussion and offering these suggestions. Yes, it's true, some people are hateful. Some people hate Jews, or Christians, or Americans, or Arabs...we're tribal animals. We hate people for their social groupings. When you opt into this group, people may hate "you" for being part of it. People call me gender-critical and hate me because of it, but I'm not gender-critical or anti-trans or an activist—the labels affixed to me by others. But at the individual level, they don't know me, so they don't actually hate me. And I have no control over how people feel about groups I may or may not belong to. So I would add this. Thoughts?
1. I mostly agree with your reply. I certainly think "we're tribal animals... at the individual level, they don't know me, so they don't actually hate me" is a good message to give to trans kids who today feel threatened. But I guess I would revise it to reflect the fact that they *are* hated, and even are, in some ways, threatened, even if you don't regard (e.g.) ending medical interventions as a threat. Be a little less reassuring, and a little more empathetic, while keeping the basic message.
2. At the same time, I do think that " Some people hate Jews, or Christians, or Americans, or Arabs...we're tribal animals. We hate people for their social groupings", while completely true, also downplays matters slightly when said internally by gender critical feminists. Of course people hate all those groups, but not steadily and not equally and not in the same ways. Take Jews (I'm Jewish (Yorick is but a Penn name)): while anti-semitism seems, alas, eternal, there has been a real uptick in anti-semitism in the U.S. recently, which should not be downplayed by equating it with anti-Christian or anti-American sentiment; it should be spoken against, especially by those who are superficially similar to those who propound it (i.e. since both are Christians) . Similarly, the Trump administration is causing pain in all sorts of directions, it is singling out for hate trans people (and immigrants); they are the immediate targets of the current two-minute hate. So I think we should take especial note of it. I would say, in particular, that those who are gender critical should take especial note of it, since they can do the most good, in, so to speak, both directions: both by standing up to their erstwhile allies and saying "we meant this but not THAT"), and by reassuring trans people that indeed not all their opponents are enemies. I do not blame gender critical people for the triumph of homophobes and those who genuinely wish trans people harm, but I do think they are in an unusual strong position to mitigate it and thus ought to. Even if that violates the basic social grouping they identify with.
3. I'm not surprised you don't identify as anti-trans (as I said, it's a poor term, I am trying to come up with a term that will include both gender-critical feminists and also genuinely anti-trans people), but I am curious why you wouldn't describe yourself as gender critical. Can you say more?
4. I am very grateful for your willingness to engage, which (to my frustration) is all-too-rare on this topic (moreso, I dare say, by my side than yours, but I have seen (and experienced) it from both.
Yes, I share your concern that since "our" side never admitted that there were huge problems and never relented or pulled back, this hard line approach to stopping is going too far in the other direction. I met a woman from South Carolina who told me that there really was hatred for this class or category of young people brewing. From my perspective, we liberals brought it on by not embracing the Cass Review, the SRs, detransitioners, the unfathomably high suicide rate in the Chen paper, etc. We had off-ramps galore, and nobody took them. And now we have...this moment. Thanks for being in here with us and offering this perspective. Please continue to do so.
I agree that there were off-ramps not taken. I wish the whole temperature on this conversation had been turned down, long ago. I believe there is a moderate middle which could be assembled, with enough patience and calm. (Although when I had a substack making that argument, I convinced, as far as I know, precisely no one, and had people from both sides spewing disdain in my direction, so perhaps I am wrong.)
Thanks for being open to multiple perspectives. I appreciate your work,, and learning about your point of view.
This ongoing conversation is very insightful, helpful.
I would like to understand more about the certainty that trans kids are hated--as you suggest here--ever and always. Is it not more fear and misunderstanding than hate?
I agree that there is fear and misunderstanding aplenty. But I feel fairly sure there is hate too. The reason I think so is that reading what people say online, there are people who express disgust and revulsion in hateful terms, who say things simply to be cruel, and who express an utter lack of concern for the well-being of trans kids. Those, for me, read as hatred.
I would add that the reason you are called an anti-trans, gender critical activist is because you use their terminology. The term “trans-identified” for example, is a slur, and is used exclusively by members of the gender critical ideology, and by neo-Nazis.
It's not a slur. It's a neutral descriptor. Your considering it a slur doesn't make it so. Social contagion is also a neutral descriptor. Some people describe themselves as transgender. They haven't changed sex. They're no different from other people in their sex. We need neutral language. That's what I'm striving for.
It is indeed a slur. As the partner of a trans person, and someone who works with numerous trans people, it is *absolutely* a slur. It’s not used in civilized conversations. It is absolutely NOT neutral, and is terminology coined by gender critical extremists. They refer to transgender women and girls as “Tims” or “trans identifying males” and trans men and boys and “tifs” trans identifying females”. It’s disgusting, not to mention incorrect.
Referring to trans people as a social contagion is also not in any way a neutral descriptor. That is even more insidious, and is a common canard of the extreme far right. It’s clear to me now that you have been entirely radicalized by the gender critical religion.
No one describes themselves as transgender. Being trans is an immutable characteristic. You cannot identify being trans any more than one can identify as having green eyes, or having diabetes, or being 6 feet tall. You either are or you aren’t. It’s not a matter of identity.
Transsexuals, who fall under the category of transgender, undergo sex change. Not all trans people are transsexual.
I agree that they are no different from other people of their sex and are entitled to all the same rights and protections. Trans women are women, and deserve all the exact same rights as cis women. Vice versa for trans men.
We do absolutely need neutral language. I agree. Which is why I implore you do abandon slurs like “trans identified/trans identifying” and social contagion. Both are utterly disgusting, and you will certainly not be able to convince anyone who is not an extremist to come to the table by using such slurs. Adopt neutral language. The neutral terms are transgender kids/people. Not “trans identifying kids”. You can’t identify as trans. It’s an immutable characteristic. The insinuation that it is a matter of choice is a deliberate attempt to legitimize conversion therapy and to eliminate trans people as a distinct minority.
I agree with you for the most part, as a supporter of trans rights, except for one thing: the gender critical movement *definitely* hates trans people, especially women and girls. The gender critical ideology was borne directly out of phrenological theories invented by the Nazis.
I genuinely believe there are people who hold bigotries against trans people that may not be hateful deep in their hearts, especially among fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, but the gender critical ideology is another matter entirely. It’s a hate movement from its inception.
That's not how I see it. But Money did believe "gender identity" was malleable before age three and he randomly "assigned" a sex to some young people with intersex conditions, and sometimes approved surgeries to match (if I remember correctly)...and most of those assignments worked out fine, at least according to a biography of Money I read. Of course, it very much did not in the case of David Reimer, but he didn't have an intersex condition. I will say that these early treatments may have been "successful" on one population, depending on how you define that word, but they were never intended for the entire population.
Indeed, Money is well liked by Gender criticals as he was a proponent of conversion therapy, but he is reviled by trans people for his horrific abuse against Reimer and other kids, trans and intersex.
His theories on gender have all been discredited. It’s widely acknowledged now that gender identity is inborn and biological, is likely a complex mix of sexual biology, individual neurology, genes and environmental factors (particularly in utero).
This is false. The first sex reassignment procedures were performed in the late 20s, and the concept of transsexuality were formed by doctors in the early 20th century.
John Money is not liked by trans people, though he is heralded as a folk hero by gender criticals. Money believed that “gender” was simply a matter of socialization, and was a strong proponent of anti-trans conversion therapy. His most notable experiment was on David Reimer, a young trans man who was assigned female shortly after birth due to a botched circumcision. Once Reimer started displaying signs of gender dysphoria at the age of around 3, Money performed conversion therapy on him in an attempt to convince him he was a girl. The experiment failed horrifically. Reimer came out as trans when he was 12, underwent medical transition to male as a teenager, but even post transition he still suffered from severe dysphoria and PTSD from his experiences in childhood, and sadly took his own life.
David was born male. He was injured in a circumcision accident. John Money tried to turn him into a girl. It failed. David Reimer reclaimed his birthright as a male. He wasn't a trans man. Trans men are born with ovaries. David was born with testicles.
I must say, this is probably the most impressive historical contortionist act I have seen on David Reimer's story, however. I'm genuinely astonished, but not in a good way.
He was, but he was reassigned female shortly after birth. Indeed, Money was convinced that gender was just socialization, as gender criticals today insist. He performed conversion therapy on Reimer to make him accept that he was female. It didn’t work.
Reimer absolutely was a trans man. There is no prerequisite of having ovaries to be trans. You can have any organs. You just have to be assigned the wrong sex. Reimer was trans. He was assigned female, and later claimed his true gender and transitioned to male.
I do agree, your twisting of David Reimer’s life and story is probably the most disturbing and impressive historical contortion/revisionism I’ve ever seen. And not in a good way. Particularly gruesome given that Money is a hero among gender criticals, and Reimer was a trans rights supporter when he lived and opposed the gender critical religion.
I am not particularly religious and I am guessing you aren’t either, but when I read this article the phrase just rose in my head: You are doing God’s work, Lisa.
Sadly, this article uses a lot of deeply religious terminology (“trans identified” is actually not just religious terminology, but actually a slur), and endorses opposition to the rights and healthcare of trans people under a religious pretext.
This isn't religious language or a slur, it's heresy. Under the teachings of the Gender Faith, gender identity is absolute Truth. The term "trans identified" questions this doctrine, and is thus deeply offensive to the faithful.
There are certainly situations where blasphemy is extremely rude and socially inappropriate because it hurts people's feelings. Going into a designated Queer space and talking about "trans identified" is just as rude as going into a Catholic Church and yelling that the trinity is bullshit.
But Substack is public space and freedom of speech is more important than propriety.
Indeed, it is both religious language and a slur. I will concede however that it is indeed used to avoid heresy, as to acknowledge the material, objective and biological reality of gender identity would be heretical according to the tenets of the gender critical religion.
The term “trans identified” is a slur, and is based on the doctrine that gender identity either doesn’t exist at all, or is a matter of personal choice/identity, both of which are explicitly counterfactual and pseudoscientific assertions, but are held as divine revelations by members of the gender critical cult.
I’m not surprised concerned with any rudeness that comes from committing blasphemy against the gender critical religion. Whilst members of your faith are entitled to your supernatural beliefs, you cannot force others to submit to them, especially when they are pseudoscientific, counterfactual and morally wrong. I don’t care at all about the feelings of gender criticals, nor the tradcaths they descended from ideologically, and especially not the Nazis who founded your religion. Indeed, telling a gender critical that the slur “trans identified” is offensive, especially when it’s used in religious propaganda meant to persecute children for the sin of being trans and existing despite the gender critical dogma stating that said people shouldn’t exist, would be no different than walking into a fundamentalist Christian Church and telling them that the term “sodomite” is a slur against gay people, whom their religion considers abominations meant to be persecuted for the sin of existing in a way that is incompatible with their faith, much as members of the gender critical religion treat trans people.
Your opinion is sadly wrong, as is your religion. Keep it to yourself. Stop trying to take rights away from trans people because of your pseudoscientific religious beliefs.
There is no material, objective and biological reality of gender identity. If there was, it would be used as a diagnostic criteria and the vast majority of folks seeking "gender affirmation" would be turned away, just like people who DON'T have cancer are not permitted to demand chemotherapy.
Gender identity is a doctrine, as True as the trinity. That is, perfect Truth to the believers, and a little weird for non-believers.
There's evidence of some kind of neurological "body map" that can misalign with actual body. But it's not unique to the reproductive system. Disambiguating it from body dysmorphia is tricky.
Except there is. There is about 100 years worth of medical evidence proving its existence, and it is acknowledged by all medical professionals and institutions. The facts are not on your side.
And what? There is ABSOLUTELY a diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria. It’s been in multiple DSMs. Also, the vast majority of people who seek gender affirming care *are* turned away.
No. Gender identity is a fact. Objective. Measurable. Biological. Denying it, is the equivalent of denying the earth being spheroid. You are an adherent of a pseudoscientific religious dogma. It is also no wonder why there is such a huge overlap between flat earthers, gender criticals and anti-vaxxers. All pseudoscientific cults.
The last paragraph you mentioned is exactly what gender dysphoria is.
In the US, people get turned away from "gender affirmative care" for the same reasons they get turned away from liposuction and face lifts: money. I have yet to hear of a single person being turned away because they don't meet the diagnostic criteria in the last decade.
30 years ago, MOST people were indeed turned away. The gatekeepers did their jobs and "gender affirmative care" was an extreme treatment for an incredibly rare medical condition. That is no longer the case. Advocating for that standard is why Kenneth Zucker was driven out of WPATH.
Lisa this is beautiful. And practical. We can use these suggestions. Thank you. Those of us in this fight to end the scandal know that media is a HUGE part of the social contagion and the push to normalize this in society, but this writing really stopped me. The media has had a WAY bigger role in this than is recognized even as many people are trying to bring that fact out of the shadows. It’s just so so so so SO much more than may ever be known. I hope one day people do the research and write thesis papers on the quantitative effects of media’s lies, participation, propaganda, cover up and intentional deceit about gender, its so-called medical treatment, implying men are women and the trampling of women and girls’ rights. That doesn’t even touch on social media’s permanent, detrimental effects.
Hi there, just want to remind you that there is no “social contagion”. And the media is overwhelmingly anti-trans in any case, so if there was a socially contagious aspect to being trans (there isn’t), you’d see a decline in number of trans people, not an increase. Instead, the statistics have actually not changed in over 20 years. Number of people diagnosed with gender dysphoria remains at around 0.7% of the population. No increase except that the number of transgender men and boys is now equal to transgender women and girls, and more people are seeking medical transition rather than mere social transition.
Happily though, on your second point, there is some research on on the quantitative effects of the media’s lies, participation, propaganda, cover up and intentional deceit about gender, their disinformation campaigns against accepted science and medical care, calling men (trans men specifically) women and women (specifically trans women and girls) men, and the trampling of the rights of women and girls, both cis and trans. It’s been horrific. The literature is horrific though, as the anti-trans movement has harmed so many in the most terrible ways, and the media is to blame for promoting the anti-trans movement so vociferously.
Sadly, with gender critical extremists like Elon and Zuckerberg and the Chinese Government at the helm of the biggest social media companies, the horrible effects of social media on trans people is only going to get far far worse.
Thank you, Lisa. These are the wise words kids should hear their whole lives. Our vulnerable-ing of kids (maybe we can make up a new word: “vulnerabullying”) has been a primary cause of this highly damaging trend.
In an effort to attune more to our kids than the previous generation (if many gen z’s parents were often dismissed by their own parents, as I experienced), we made a vital mistake by coddling them and treating them simultaneously like babies (“don’t get hurt”) and adults (“you decide, baby”). We, gen z’s parents, have also believed that we could have it all - a thriving career, amazing health (if we just do everything right), and an ideal marriage and family life. The stress and pressure kept us on our phones and chasing the best lifestyle, body, and marriage, and comfortable with our kids burying their heads in their electronic devices…rather than taking them, for example, camping.
I will keep your suggested wise words of advice to vocalize to anyone who could use the reminder.
Hi there, I know multiple trans minors Andy partner is trans, and I would strongly advise against that. This article uses anti-trans slurs such as “trans-identifying kids”, and pushes some very pernicious medical disinformation.
As a specialist in mental health, I must say that everything you said here was 100% spot on. For kids who are already emotionally vulnerable, the absolute worst thing you can do to them is to reinforce their beliefs that they are hated, that they are destined to live as powerless victims. What the adults really should be focusing on is helping these kids achieve a strong sense of resilience and self-efficacy.
I don’t disagree, but I think nowadays especially, in places particularly where gender affirming care bans, bathroom bans and sports bans have been implemented, it’s more important to remind them that they’re loved and supported, not to lie to them and to pretend that anti-trans activists intent on stripping them of their civil rights don’t hate them. Lying is never a good thing to do, especially not under the spurious assumption that lying to them will somehow make them more resilient and self-sufficient.
I know and work with many trans people, including kids, and while in a safe area where there are no sports bans, no healthcare restrictions and no bathroom bans, and while in a perfect world they would not have to fear the tidal wave of pseudoscientific anti-trans religious bigotry that seems to have engulfed the entire world, the trans youngsters I know do not feel or act like powerless victims knowing these facts. They’re more resilient than ever, and are motivated to fight for their rights, advocate for themselves and cultivate strong communities, with family, friends and allies.
This is the message that people need to hear most! Nobody will explode if they don’t get chemically and/or surgically altered to appear more like the opposite sex. Or if others don’t refer to it treat them as if they are the opposite sex.
Even if someone has a strong preference for those things and could theoretically be happier if they get them, they are not required for any semblance of happiness. And, given all of the negative aspects of those things - from incontinence, bone density issues, infertility, sexual dysfunction, infections, and increased risk of numerous diseases and health problems, including strokes and heart attacks and cancer, as well as the burden of having to play-act at being something you physically are not, it should be a goal to try to live without those things if possible.
Thus, if one is potentially deprived of those things. It is no tragedy!! (And it just might be a blessing in disguise.)
This is false. The trans community has been saying no such thing. There will always be religious and pseudoscientific ideologues who are against trans people. The issue is not their approval. It’s that said ideologies are not content with merely disapproving, they are intent on stripping human and civil rights away from trans people. In an ideal world, it would be good to tell a trans girl to simply not care about other people’s approval and use the women’s bathroom and play women’s sports with her friends. But in many places, that could land said trans girl in a men’s prison, where she will almost certainly either be assaulted and raped, or held in solitary.
So it’s not a simple live and let live situation. If it was, trans people wouldn’t have to worry about other people’s disapproval. But it’s not mere disapproval. It’s the stripping of trans people of their human and civil rights that is the threat to the safety and wellbeing of trans people, especially women and girls.
It’s not really hysteria at all, as in the US some hospitals are indeed complying in advance and denying healthcare to trans patients that are minors.
My guess is you simply do not want the myriad of studies all proving the suicidality rates of trans kids skyrocketing after anti-trans laws are enacted because you know you’re complicit in their passing. The NHS in England attempted to cover up the enormous suicide spike in trans minors after they banned puberty blockers. It was a scandal of proportions we have never before seen in modern medicine, yet the media barely said a peep about it, likely because they were complicit in their ban.
Perhaps we can also direct people to the concepts and skills offered in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. It's very helpful for handling emotional dysregulation and distress.
2) What is effective depends on the source of the gender dysphoria. For example, a female with a history of sexual abuse may benefit from an investigation of the causes of the dysphoria rather than medical intervention. A one-size-fits-all approach does not make sense.
Ah, Lisa. I was hoping for someone smart and competent to say something, well, smart and competent about this.
Add Jack Turban to your list of offenders.
Turban: ' The company told its users (3 billion on Facebook alone) that bullying LGBT people is acceptable. Roughly 1:3 LGBT kids report being bullied in the past year. And this leads to dramatically elevated rates of suicide attempts. By normalizing bullying, Meta is ensuring that these suicidality rates intensify. And vulnerable kids and their families are going to pay the price.'
Such therapy is illegal in the majority of states. It's the next biggest problem to deal with after the bans of youth related drug and surgical processes are in place.
I hate to do this, because I do believe in free speech, but I'm going to block the troll. It's really great for us to have this opportunity to observe, up close and personal, how a person who's only ingested activist talking point (alas, which are reprinted in NYT) processes information. But we've passed the tipping point and people are giving the troll a lot of air, and not being able to free themselves. I have him muted, but I've had requests to end his reign. So, sigh, I will.
“Others’ disagreement doesn’t affect your existence.”
“Gender dysphoria is real, but can be managed. 80% of those who suffer eventually desist: don’t close that door, or allow others to talk you into closing it.”
“Irreversible medicalization isn’t a good or ethical first treatment for mental health issues, and talk therapy isn’t conversion therapy.”
Yes, and this! Okay for me to add?
While I’ve muted Jason, I think this has some relevance:
https://substack.com/@digitalcanary/note/c-89952549?r=4hy79y&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Of course!
As Cake once sang (never mind the “religion”), apropos of this & the general state of insane global affairs:
We are building it bigger
We are widening the corridors
And adding more lanes
To resist it is useless
It is useless to resist it
We are making a brand
We're the only ones to turn to
When your castles turn to sand
Some people drink Pepsi
Some people drink Coke
The wacky morning DJ
Says democracy's a joke
He says now do you believe
In the one big song
He's now accepting callers
Who would like to sing along
https://youtu.be/ezoOnI95BpE?si=Cwy0RK4Qbf1ZjyaW
Hi there, this is false Liz the 80% statistic was invented by anti-trans activists and is not supported by any medical literature whatsoever.
Also, talk therapy is a prerequisite in getting approved for puberty blocker and HRT. There’s nothing wrong with talk therapy, however what anti-trans religious activists such as the person writing this article means is that they indeed want conversion therapy, which is to convince kids with gender dysphoria that they do not actually have gender dysphoria. We don’t do this with any other condition. We don’t try to convince kids with autism that they are not autistic, just because there are religious extremists ideologically opposed to human and civil rights for people with autism.
It's nice to have a believer here, Jason, and you're welcome to be here. But if you're sending links like Rafferty's statement well...alas, the medical orgs are advocacy groups. Every systematic review has come to the same conclusion. Here's a great fact check of Rafferty. You're welcome to keep leaving these comments, but my hope is that you'll be open to the idea that some of what you've been told is true is in fact misinformation. Or even disinformation. You might want to read more about the history of the idea of gender identity. I also suggest Michael Biggs work on the Dutch protocol. https://www.jamescantor.org/uploads/6/2/9/3/62939641/cantor_fact-check_of_aap.pdf
Thanks, Lisa.
As above, we are building something together :)
Nothing better than strengthening ties between religious extremists.
I'm pretty sure Lisa is not religious.
Religious about dark chocolate and needle felting!
She uses religious terminology and slurs, and this article implies strong dogmatic support for the gender critical religion, so it seems she is religious, or is at least a close ideological ally to the gender critical religion
Believer? I’m not sure what you mean? Scientific reality doesn’t require belief.
I also linked a medical study, and can gladly link more, which proves unequivocally that the “80%” statistic was made up by anti-trans activists. Every systemic review has come to the same conclusion.
I am of course *always* open to medical studies and scientific information. I would hope you’d be too, but I fear that is not the case.
And of course, I reject the assertion that medical/scientific with results you ideologically disapprove of are “misinformation”. That’s not what misinformation is. And it’s certainly not disinformation. A bit ironic you level the disinformation accusation at me when a number of people have been peddling anti-trans disinformation in this comment section, including the claim that Sweden and Finland banned HRT and Puberty blockers, which is demonstrably untrue.
I’m fairly well educated on the topic of gender identity (and transsexualism more broadly). I will of course look at your link and get back to you.
I usually resist the urge to do the "someone is wrong on the internet" thing, but I guess I'm feeling weak today.
Many people here will recognize that at least one of your "anti-trans activists" who "invented" that statistic is supposed to be Ken Zucker. They will also be very familiar with his work and views and experience at the hands of activists, and so find your description of him completely unpersuasive. One does not magically become an "anti-trans activist" by being labeled as such by Transgender Map, not even if they manage to get their own goofy caricature.
Anyway, you don't need anyone find the links to his or others' research on desistance for you; if you managed to find this article you can Google it as well as anyone. You may not like him or his research or agree with what it says. But it's out there, existing, independent of your declaration that numbers on high rates of desistence are "not supported by any medical literature whatsoever". So you can stop saying that now.
I wouldn’t call Ken Zucker an anti-trans activist, as he doesn’t really engage much in actual anti-trans activism at all. I would only call him a discredited former expert whose theories have been dismissed by medical consensus and who engaged in unethical behaviour in the past.
It is indeed true that there is no exiting or independent medical literature indicating that there are high rates of detransition. Quite the opposite. There is a *tonne* of studies showing that detransition is unbelievably rare, and even in cases where it does exist, it’s usually not a result of misdiagnosis. Don’t take my word for it at all. By all means, look it up. You won’t though.
Yeah, this is a good example of why I usually don't do this kind of thing online. Now we have topic whack-a-mole: Kenneth Zucker's history with activists, research on desistance, and NOW research on detransition (believe it or not, yeah, I've read the whole Bustos meta-analysis and every paper that went into it I could get for free. I'm familiar with that literature and the flaws with it). You can find plenty of good alternative perspectives to yours on these topics if you want. No need for me or anyone else here to summarize them for you.
So I'll leave you with an observation based on the comments you've left here; you seem to have effectively shielded yourself from taking seriously any person or group you disagree with by defining them out of being worthy of your consideration. Don't like what Lisa says? She's a "religious extremist" (this is utterly non-sensical to anyone who's remotely familiar with her) who has "been entirely radicalized by the gender critical religion". Don't like what Genspect does? They're "an anti-trans religious activist organization". SEGM is "a militant religious activist group". And you've defined your preferred language as "neutral" and anything else as a "slur" and of "the extreme far right". I could go on.
Notice the linguistic protective shell you've built for yourself and how it de-humanizes the people you've chosen to interact with here. And then consider the implications of that on any chance you have of coming to understand them or any of the legitimate, good-faith concerns they have that lead them to see this issue differently than you. But perhaps that's not what you came here to do.
Narrator: it is not what he came here to do.
Appreciate the combined efforts. And apologies to all involved for attracting the timbit.
In what way is Ken Zucker discredited? By whom?
I think you’re thinking of someone else.
Zucker was falsely maligned by TRAs and later publicly vindicated.
Have you actually read any of his research?
Talk therapy isn't a prerequisite, it's "recommended" and entirely optional. Also expensive. Frequently skipped. Requiring talk therapy as a prerequisite is"gatekeeping." Check the WPATH SOC 8.
Yes and often we’ve seen from the whistleblowers who tell us that often a single letter was required after just one session - and if they had concerns they were basically told to shut up or get out🤷♀️🤦♀️It’s a profit making industry - cue the Netflix series about the latest medical scandal, similar to ‘Painkillers’ et Al
No, this is misinformation. In my province, talk therapy is a prerequisite for minors before they can be prescribed blockers or HRT.
You may be mistaking adult care for childcare. Adult prescriptions indeed do not require talk therapy.
I’m not sure that I agree with the assertion that talk therapy is gatekeeping. I’ve seen no evidence that talk therapy is in any way detrimental.
In the US, people can walk out with a prescription after a single consult of less than an hour. Read Jamie Reed's whistleblower report. The WPATH SOC8 do not support talk therapy as a prerequisite. Whistleblowers for Tavistock reported similar things.
I cannot speak to the laws in your province. If it's true that a higher standard is held, I am glad to hear it. But as I was referencing the GLOBAL standards and not your province standards. The accusation of misinformation is perhaps a bit overwrought.
Well clearly I am not American, and given the for-profit nature of the US healthcare system I can’t say I’m exactly surprised that you can just walk into a doctors office and demand a prescription to anything so long as you pay for it out of pocket.
Jamie Reed was discredited. She was caught in multiple lies. Even her own ideological allies turned against her when it was revealed most of what she said was not true. This was reported on extensively. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. It was fairly big news.
The US is unusual in a lot of ways (where I live for example, the Prime Minister has absolutely no authority whatsoever to decide what healthcare a person can or cannot have, whereas in the US Trump has threatened to withhold funding and shut shown any hospitals that treat trans patients that are minors). Most of Western Europe, Canada, Australia and NZ etc have healthcare systems that work very differently
Yes, I live in Canada too, Jason.
Healthcare is a provincial matter.
And all are now beholden to C16.
You may not be American, but you sure swallow a whole lot of codswallop.
You’re a timbit among wedding cakes, a piping plover among eagles.
I don’t argue with timbits. I dunk them.
As has been done.
Just don’t vote for PP you imbecile.
If you're going to start discrediting whistle blowers, there's a LONG list. Is your assertion that they're all lying? To what purpose? Seems like a bit of a conspiracy theory to me.
Hi there Jason.
How about some evidence for your claims?
Here a bunch for mine.
https://statsforgender.org/desistance/
Just because they don’t align with your ideological view doesn’t make them “anti trans”. That’s not how science works. (Real science, not pseudoscience that y’all like to trot out.)
Feel free to respond with counter studies, and then we can compare reliability, methods, etc., instead of you falling back on ad hominems.
As for religious activism, it is to laugh. I’m a die-hard antitheist, even been to skeptics conferences before the assholes came out due to Elevatorgate.
Finally, autism? Fuck, you lot will try to appropriate anything, won’t you? Any port in a storm, I suppose.
You’re correct that autistic children aren’t talked out of being autistic (pro tip: neither are dysphoric children). Unlike dysphoric kids, autistic ones have an actual physiological condition; thinking you’re the opposite sex (or “align more fully with”) isn’t a medical condition, it’s a psychological one.
So, my idiot interlocutor, what sayest thou?
Remember, say it with *science*.
Hi there Canary, the first link you sent me is not a scientific study. It’s a link to Genspect, an extremist anti-trans religious activist organization.
I have no ideological view. I’m only a materialist, and I only support accepted science. Views that oppose scientific reality in due to a religious objection to transgender people is indeed an anti-trans view.
I will of course respond with a counter study. I’ll need to do some googling.
You’re an adherent of the gender critical religion. It’s a religious denomination borne directly out of the TradCath anti-gender movement, which was in turn directly influenced my Nazi phrenological theories about race and gender. You can’t be an anti-theist while adhering to the dogma of a pseudoscientific religious cult. Being sceptical is fine. Being skeptical of accepted science is generally less fine, especially when it is ideologically motivated.
Also, what? Where did you see me appropriating anything? I’m not sure you know what the word appropriation means. That’s okay.
And yes, you cannot talk a child out of being autistic, just as you cannot talk a trans child out of being dysphoric. And gender dysphoria is absolutely a physiological condition, just as much as autism is. It’s laughably ridiculous to say that it’s not a physiological condition. Psychiatric conditions are physiological. Ironically, the prevailing evidence also strongly suggests that both gender dysphoria and autism have neurological origins (the latter is beyond debate).
Lastly, trans people don’t “believe themselves to be the opposite sex”. They experience gender dysphoria, in which their biosocial sex is incongruous with the rest of their phenotype. The accepted treatment is medical transition, to align phenotypical sex characteristics with gender identity. If trans people “believed themselves to be the opposite sex”, they wouldn’t transition.
Remember, say it with *science*
Where to start, Jason?
Yes, it’s from Genspect. And if you had any intellectual integrity, you might have pressed “expand” and seen the referenced details, complete with link that you can access yourself.
But I realize how frightening “expanding” anything can be to a self-identified “materialist”.
Now, for being unbroken to any ideology, you sure seem committed to calling gender critical positions a religion. It’s not. I’m a fully recovered Catholic, haven’t attended mass since my confirmation. And a physicist by education. Again, you self-identify as being ideologucally uncaptured, and that’s fine: doesn’t directly hurt anyone, though you should consider how it stunts your intellectual development. The Nazi allusion was a nice effort, but you really didn’t stick the landing.
Appropriation: your attempt to legitimize medicalization of a psychological condition (gender dysphoric) by force teaming it with a physiological one (autism)!is morally bankrupt. Do you know what those words mean?
Once again: no one talking anyone out of being gender dysphoric. It really does exist. Talk therapy is intended to address the discomfort and the beliefs that “transitioning” (from what to what, *precisely*, Jason) will cure that discomfort. (It doesn’t, reliably)
Of course all human thoughts are physiological in origin - we’re all just meat puppets (you could read my one and only post, if you cared to expand your thinking).
But the difference between a physiological and a purely psychological pathology is that the former has somatic correlates outside the brain - it’s reflective of a non-brain condition - while the latter is happening inside the brain, and only in the brain.
But if you want to provide a suitable study that pins down the neural correlates of gender dysphoria, we could have a discussion at least (hint: doesn’t exist).
If only your characterization of trans-identifying individuals didn’t ignore all the instances of people who do believe that they are transitioning their bodies (via surgeries and exogenous hormones) to have them match their brain sex, you might come away with a nugget of learning. But your arguments are as incoherent and incomprehensible as the ideology you seek to uphold - nay, enforce!
At any rate, having *already* said it with science, I look forward to your trenchant analysis of … what I already sent.
And I’ll take a look at your link. Karnak predicts a WPATH circle jerk, but maybe you have something I’ve not yet seen.
Good luck to you, you brave and good “materialist” 😂🤣😂
I didn’t bother. Genspect is an extremist religious organizations. If you’d linked me to the Taliban’s website or the website of the Westboro Baptist Church I similarly would have dismissed it with prejudice.
Well it is a religion. It has an official dogma, a standard belief system that includes supernatural elements, was an explicit offshoot of a religious movement etc. Granted I admit the definition of religion is debated among sociologists, but the gender critical religion does fit the bill in my eyes.
You should google the Catholic anti-gender movement. And the influence of Nazi phrenology on it and the Gender critical ideology. It’s pretty fascinating stuff, in a horrible and disturbing way. It’s not a “nice effort” either. The gender critical ideology very explicitly is descended from Nazi phrenology. Even avowed gender criticals, including Helen Joyce, have made no secret of this. It’s not an obscure fact.
I wouldn’t say I describe myself as being ideologically uncaptured in every capacity. Just that materialism and objective reality and science inform my beliefs.
There’s no such thing as “trans identifying individuals”. This is religious terminology invented by adherents to faiths which reject the objective existence of gender dysphoria. It’s also a slur, so the civilized among us try to avoid the term out of basic respect, even if we have religious beliefs. The rest of that patagraph descends into unintelligible ramblings, so I’ll just move on, but I’ll say just that science is not an ideology that needs to be enforced. No matter how tyrannically members of your religion attempt to enforce your religious beliefs on others, it will never work. The Russians, the Taliban, various Islamist regimes, Trump and the GC’s in the UK are all attempting to mandate being trans out of existence. It simply will not work. Even if you succeed in killing or imprisoning every single trans person alive today, in a generation there will be the exact same number of trans people. Even that is a long shot. In dark times, people go stealth to protect themselves. Trans women will continue to use women’s bathrooms/lockerrooms, continue to play on women’s sports teams, they’ll just do so clandestinely, as they did in the 20th century. Families of trans kids in countries that have banned gender affirming care move to better places, or get healthcare on the grey market. Your cult will fade, but people will endure.
I have other links BTW. There’s great thing about taking a stance in accordance with science is that there’s a lot of data to buttress you.
And you didn’t say anything with science. Again, Genspect is a religious activist group. They do not acknowledge science.
So, for the book I'm working on, Jason, I did a lot of research about how Genspect was formed. It's really a fascinating story. I'd suggest you put aside your own biases, and dismissing information because you don't like the source it came from, and being open to seeing these issues in a new way. Read Cantor's fact check of the AAP statement. Read Biggs' history of the Dutch Protocol. Read the Hannah Barnes book Time to Think. Report back to us after!
What are the specific supernatural elements one must believe in to be gender critical?
Here’s one link. I will link more as there are various studies confirming that if gender dysphoria persists until the start of puberty (tanner stage 1-2), its is almost invariably permanent. https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/150/2/e2022057693/187006/Persistence-of-Transgender-Gender-Identity-Among?autologincheck=redirected
OMG dude, *literally* the first word of content is “Commentaries”. You know what those are, right? Opinions.
As for the linked paper, you can feel free to respond to Lisa. But remember:social transition is NOT a neutral act, as it can reinforce false beliefs.
Here’s another paper on that very issue:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38594055/
(Again, you’ll have to click a button to see the link to the full paper - “expand” that section, so to speak)
But here’s the conclusion:
“Importantly, there are no prospective longitudinal studies with appropriate comparator groups assessing the impact of social transition on mental health or gender-related outcomes for children/adolescents. Professionals working in the area of gender identity and those seeking support should be aware of the absence of robust evidence of the benefits or harms of social transition for children and adolescents.”
Having read your linked study, guess what? I concede! At least I concede that it appears to be true that there are no studies which appear to show that social transition alone has any effect on mental health outcomes for trans children (the adolescents had more mixed results, according to one study included in your link).
Still don’t see how anyone can police that though, as you just can’t forbid people from wearing certain clothes, of having a certain name or sporting a certain haircut. More, as i suspected, the link doesn’t actually say that there are any negative implications included in any studies. Just that there are no studies at all, and the few that exist are inconclusive
…did you not see that there are dozens of linked studies, including ones that explicitly support what I said? For someone who got mad at me for not reading a post to a religious activist site, you sure were quick to reject a link which had a laundry list of medical studies included.
Social transition is a fairly neutral act. What exactly is the false belief it can assert?
I will take a look at your second link. Hopefully it includes studies and is not from Genspect or SEGM or the Westboro Baptist Church.
If however the quote is accurate, my rebuttal will be this: how does one mandate minors not socially transition? You cannot police what clothes people wear or what name they call themselves. Even kids. It violates free speech/free expression. More, even if you could, you’d have to have a very VERY good reason, and a lack of studies showing any benefits (or even drawbacks) to social transition for kids with gender dysphoria is not a reason.
Hi, Jason. Several studies found a desistance rate between 60 and 90 percent.
Hey Jason, if you still think talk therapy is a prerequisite, go check out the website of Seattle Children's Hospital Gender Clinic. It's laid out in black and white that they only offer medicalization and they do NOT offer or require therapy. It has a list of "referrals" for people who want therapy. Top of the list is: the Amaze video series.
That's not therapy, it's propaganda.
>Gender dysphoria is real
as real as the rest of psychology
which is to say
not
lmao
don't you ever get tired of that poisoned tree littering its fruit every gosh darn place?
Are you claiming that no one feels discomfort about the “alignment” of their bodies to gender stereotypes?
That discomfort is real.
Its causes are up for debate: I don’t think it’s a mis-alignment of anything but their bodily self-image and reality (literally: it’s all in their minds).
But the reality of that discomfort is no more in question than the reality that anorexics are similarly afflicted to the point of starving themselves to death.
Personally, I’d like to see both psychology (a social “science”) and psychiatry (a medical “science”) get themselves better grounded in the physical sciences that underpin their purported fields of expertise (or should that be “purported fields of purported expertise” perhaps?).
People suffering with mental illnesses (myself included) deserve better care.
But that doesn’t render everything that either field of study does useless (or worse, dangerous):
I’ve benefited from the efforts of talk therapy, and I’ve benefited from ECT — immensely, and I’m grateful for it, as I feel I’ve gotten a chance to live my life unburdened by past trauma.
Better guardrails, better enforcement of those guardrails, and holding purveyors of quackery to legal account would all help tremendously.
But wouldn’t agree with tossing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
by the way, talking to yourself is the best therapy. wink.
Agreed completely.
However, I don’t think that’s particularly effective when one’s own mind produces an unreliable narrative: the value of trained guidance and support in discriminating the reliability of one’s own voice(s)*, as well as in guiding one’s thoughts in productive directions, cannot be so easily dismissed.
*As a topic upon which I intend to expand further in future, I’ll simply say that “spoken” and “heard” language - even one’s own,, and whether auditory, visual, or even tactile in nature - has a profoundly different effect on the receiving mind than internally and unexpressed cognition. As such, there is again tremendous value to be found in guided practices that enable one to better manage which particular voices and thoughts are best expressed for autoconsumption and concomitant autoreprogramming, and which are better left unexpressed so as to reduce their negative cognitive reinforcement impacts.
In short, language which is both physically expressed by one mind and experienced by another (or itself) is the original and ultimate “hacking”’tool, as it literally allows the meat hardware that is our brains to be remotely reprogrammed: that’s the core of learning, again thanks to our social evolution, and as such resting atop a foundation of socially-deceloped linguistic potentials.
In terms of spiky’s misguided “forest” gedanken experiment,the solitary existence they envision would again stunt brain development, this time the linguistic centres, and thus eliminate virtually any potential for self-talk to produce useful insights or positive results.
your own narrative is the only truly reliable one. here's a neat trick: i'll use things from "psychology" to show that "psychological help" is a self-defeating notion.
1) "psychologists" themselves have found that having an "internal locus of control" - ie, feeling that you are in control of & responsible for your own actions - is correlated with better outcomes on every metric.
2) an "external locus of control" is likewise correlated with worse outcomes.
3) seeking "psychological help" in and of itself requires externalizing your locus of control.
4) seeking "psychological help" is thus inherently "psychologically damaging."
q.e.d. (quite easily done.)
q.e.d.: quit elucidating dumbassery, Halle
>Are you claiming that no one feels discomfort about the “alignment” of their bodies to gender stereotypes?
I am claiming that everyone feels such discomfort, and that it is a natural part of being human -- because what is unnatural is the stereotype. It wouldn't exist in a forest. You would -- and you could exist however you liked.
I assert further that all of that "therapy" time would have been more productively, constructively, and healthfully spent reading a damn book. A GOOD book -- an easy selection criterion* is to pick one from before "psychology" dominated every other damn thought & before its innumerable coinings were half the damn linguistic currency.
Would you believe that people used to turn to *art* to better understand themselves & other people? Art, of all things...they must have been mad!
Good thing we have sanity down to a science. It's going so well. We're only...*checks notes*...ruled by a moron whose main public opposition is maniacally committed to child castration.
The wonders of PSYCHOLOGY!
*e: made properly singular -- one mustn't fudge one's grammar just because it's the internet.
Wow, spiky, tell me more about how you’re not a survivor of horrific childhood trauma.
I appreciate your commitment to proper grammar; beyond that, I find your response to be substantially lacking on a number of fronts.
I’ve read a damn library’s worth of good books; there’s even some great ones post-Freud, if you’re into the physical sciences. Such as, for example, JS Bell’s Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics - a modern classic on What Is and What Is Not real.
“I am claiming that everyone feels such discomfort, and that it is a natural part of being human -- because what is unnatural is the stereotype. It wouldn't exist in a forest. You would -- and you could exist however you liked.”
You are absolutely correct that gender stereotypes are the core of the problem that is gender dysphoria. IMHO that’s the crux of the radfem GC perspective, with which I agree wholeheartedly: the entire concept of “gender” is a scourge, about which we as beings capable of rational thought should all be critical.
It’s cute that you seem to think that waving a wand to eliminate those stereotypes (a) can happen in Reality, and (b) that your facile “understanding” of gender dysphoria can be extended to all psychological conditions, such as depression.
I counterclaim that “exist[ing] in a forest” you’d be likely to suffer from a whole suite of different psychological aberrations: our minds are the products of millions of years of evolution as social animals, and socialization is as key to good mental health as the absence of gender stereotypes, maybe even *more* key. The recently-reported BEIP outcomes certainly seem to support this counterclaim: see “Romania’s Abandoned Children: The Effects of Early Profound Psychosocial Deprivation on the Course of Human Development” (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10977996/).
In light of these realities, I deem your arguments around “exist[ing] in a forest” both risible and irresponsible.
Furthermore, your comments about the value of art hold a grain of truth, but also lay bare your privilege: many who suffer psychological disorders are in no more of a position to throw themselves into artistic pursuits than they are to find themselves rescued by your fantasy of eliminating gender.
Finally, *you* may be ruled by an insane “moron”, but the US isn’t the entirety of the world, spiky. I’m not ruled in any way by the moron to whom you refer, anymore than our national men’s hockey team is ruled over by yours. While all 🇨🇦political parties who are fit to form governments - federally or provincially - are similarly captured by gender ideology, their other policies are largely thoughtful, compassionate, and effective.
In summary, I find your response to be vacuous, riddled with errors, and worthy of dismissal as being the product of someone as metaphorically brain dead as the stillborn baby with which you conclude your screed.
Other than that, I very much enjoyed the play.
e: maybe try reading this for additional insight into why your response is both so telling & so unworthy of serious consideration:
https://open.substack.com/pub/notjustmyown/p/shame-on-you-abigail-shrier?r=4hy79y
Fun fact: According to every definition, almost everyone who grew up with access to the internet has "horrific childhood trauma."
Riddle me this: if being shown pornographical content by an adult at a prepubescent age would be considered not just traumatic but in fact justiciable sexual abuse, and almost everyone who grew up in the last 20 years has seen at least a pornographical banner ad or two if they had any internet all, how are we not all abuse victims?
It takes less than a wand to eliminate those stereotypes, by the way: it takes merely a thought. You refuse to think that thought, and you refuse to actually live according to the principles you espouse.
Gender is not real, and therefore neither is "gender dysphoria" -- "dysphoria," in the sense of acute discomfort with one's appearance, is somewhat of a useful term, but it has nothing to do with "gender," and I would venture to say that teen girls who starve themselves into anemia & even death have it far worse than either of us. Wishing you looked like the other sex rather than just skinny doesn't make it special.
Do you want to know how blind you are? You don't even get that you're talking to me twice.
As someone who suffered alongside my mother and sister abuse at the hands of my father that I’d never wish upon even my *worst* enemy, you can seriously GO FUCK YOURSELF - sideways, with a live porcupine, in fact.
However many of you there are.
You’re both an idiot and an asshole, though I’m sure those who behold your face have a hard time telling which is which.
We’re done.
And may I add that, when the baby was born dead of metaphorical spina bifida, its little rotting corpse *is* the problem, not the bathwater.
We didn't see waves of suicides in Sweden or Finland when they stopped the hormone and surgical treatments.
Well I know my typos are infamous, but then again I guess there’s a lot you have difficulty in understanding… 😆🤷♀️
Citations, please. Have you seen the Swedish film, Trans Train? I know from a detransitioner in Finland that they are doing psychotherapy and physio therapy for patients who present with cross-sex ideation. A study in Finland found a much higher rate of inpatient hospital stays in the post-surgery years. Look up the Swedish Study of Death Records, Dhejne, et al, 2011. Post op natal females were 40 times higher likelihood of committing suicide, natal males 19 times higher death by suicide. These were patients who had the surgeries from 1973-2003, a statistically significant number. They were age and income matched with both same sex and opposite sex Swedes who were also deceased. See segm.org for all of the studies.
Of course, although you may need to get it translated, as it is in Swedish https://web.archive.org/web/20230803230704/https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/om-socialstyrelsen/pressrum/press/uppdaterade-rekommendationer-for-hormonbehandling-vid-konsdysfori-hos-unga/
Anecdotes are not evidence FYI.
Don’t know what the Swedish study you’re referring to has anything to do with trans healthcare for minors. It appears to be about sex reassignment surgery and post surgical suicidal ideation, which is a common after-effect of all surgery.
Lastly, SEGM is an anti-trans religious activist organization. It is not a medical institution. It can perform no studies.
Post surgical completed suicides, the Swedish Death Records Study is, not ideation. You don't think 40 times more for natal females is just awful and a total failure for women trying to 'live as men?" This means for every one Swedish woman who took her own life, 40 Swedish women who think they are men took their lives. It is death records, completed deaths. Segm doesn't perform studies. It lists the research published around the world. You think women should risk infertility, liver cancer, pulmonary embolism and heart attacks as if the testosterone is like an Advil? Look up Chloe Cole, Luca Hein, Maddy Edwards, Kiera Bell, Laura Becker, Cat Cattinson, Prisha Moseley, Erin Brewer, Cristina Hineman, for a start. These are women, mostly young, mostly put on the trans train in their teens. Most had been sexually assaulted. Then look up Simon Amaya Price. Then watch Behind the Looking Glass, the only documentary about women in my category, trans widows. I keep the only data in the world on our experiences. Over 34% sexually assaulted by lingerie-wearing husband, before she got out. I wasn't. I was merely defamed and had to work 3 jobs while my tech COO ex husband lied about his employment. Currently retired from Gallery Systems, current fully owns an NYC co-op apt. worth 3M. He refused to particpate in the therapy after our 9 year old son said he wanted to kill himself. I could go on, but I see there's a new contingent of "advocates" here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frffv2sB8zE
Again, post surgical suicide (and suicidal ideation) is sadly common after all surgery. Curiously, if I’m not mistaken, I believe knee surgery has an unusually high post-surgical suicide rate for some reason.
Not sure what your second sentence means at all.
Your study didn’t say anything about “women who think they are men”. People suffering from a delusion that they are already living as a gender which they’re not would not be able to get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and would not be able to access any gender affirming care, much less surgery, which is the very last stage of sex reassignment. Either that link is a hoax that is blatantly lying, or you misunderstood it.
Indeed, SEGM doesn’t perform studies. They’re merely a militant religious activist group that opposes science.
Androgens increase risk for certain diseases. Both cis and trans men have much higher rates of heart conditions due to their male physiology. That’s part of informed consent that is told to patients before they undergo sex change. On the flip side, cis and trans women are MUCH more likely than men to get breast cancer. Again, a consequence of female physiology. Trans women undergoing male-to-female transition are warned of that. Post-op trans women also have very high likelihoods of bacterial vaginosis in the first year after vaginoplasty.
I’ve only ever heard of Chloe Cole, a very young religious convert to fundamentalist Christianity and who is paid exorbitant sums of money by far right religious organizations to decry healthcare for trans people.
Crossdressing has nothing whatsoever to do with gender dysphoria or identity.
I’m not sure what your trans husband has to do with anything at all. Also, you insinuate that your former partner is both alive and dead at the same time
What!!? I have had 3 significant surgeries, one on my skull. You are a nutter. No. Suicides are not documented as occurring after knee surgeries!
Well where are you getting that data from as the Uk gave only just dropped the prescriptions for puberty blockers? As in mid December 3024 - After the Cass report, which debunked the suicide myth…
The UK banned puberty blockers early last year. it was only made permanent recently. The massive rise in suicides which the NHS attempted to cover up occurred much earlier.
You are right that the Cass Review was debunked though. It’s been condemned as pseudoscience by every medical association pretty much on the planet.
Name these ‘medical associations’ that have ‘debunked’ the Cass report🤷♀️😆I’ll wait…
Wouldn't be surprised if all major medical associations have "debunked" the Cass report ... not because the report is unreliable, but because the medical associations are completely captured, corrupt, agents of medical gaslighting. Tragically .. many similarities with gender "medicine" and the covid response ..pushing things known to be unsafe, claiming certainty they're safe, and militantly refusing dialogue / critique from those who don't agree ...
https://pierrekorymedicalmusings.com/p/medical-journal-censorship-is-the
You’re just spewing propaganda - I live in the uk, this simply isn’t true - you have no facts or data, you’re simply making stuff up so there’s no point in engaging with you… 😆🤷♀️
Whether you live there or not is irrelevant. Your mistaken. The ban happened back under Sunak. That’s an objective fact. It was made permanent by Streeting recently, but the ban was in place for over a year, soon after the Cass review was first released. Late 2023 I believe.
I have linked multiple studies in this comment section. Nobody here seems to be interested in scientific facts though.
Word soup, you keep claiming this but show nothing🤷♀️living here and having an interest in the subject means you have your ear to the ground, with journalist and medical friends and family members - all this talk of suicides is utter rubbish… The biggest news here is female nurses taking the organisation to court for them being expected to get changed in front of men - men with penises that are probably just AGP fetishists - since when has public policy been set around people’s fetishes..? 🤷♀️🤦♀️
Speaking as someone who is basically pro-trans (I would describe myself as *moderate* pro-trans)—presumably an unusual voice in this comment section—I have a suggestion which I would hope that you will find supportive.
I agree with much of what you say here (even if we disagree about the ultimate value of what the U.S. government is doing now); these are good things to say. But I disagree with one of them: that we should tell trans kids that they aren't hated (or shouldn't tell them that they are, same thing). Because they are hated.
I do not—repeat, NOT—think that this is true of you, or of the gender critical movement as a whole. I know that you have good faith objections to a lot of trans activist goals, and that you are motivated by sincere concern for the children involved (as well as by other factors, like commitment to truth as you see it and concern for women's spaces). I admire your sincerity and regret that my side (if I may call it thus) has tried so hard to shut down debate; it was the wrong thing to do.
But not *everyone* on your side is so well motivated. There are, in fact, a lot of people who *are* motivated by hate. The anti-trans side (not the best term, but I don't know what else to call it (I'm open to suggestions)) has been an alliance of gender critical feminists of good will, classical liberals who dislike the anti-liberal tactics of trans extremists... *and* actual transphobes. And it is the third category that is actually *in power* in the United States.
I know people on my side would disagree that any of you are in good faith; I think they are wrong. But I hope you can see that there are people on your side who are *not*. I would suggest a couple (not infallible, but useful) tells: those who are also anti-gay and anti-lesbian (say, e.g.., Matt Walsh); those who express visceral disgust for trans people; those who have no concern for the well-fare of trans people (or, you might say, people who consider themselves trans). People who use slurs like "tranny", repeating it just to express disdain or disgust. I think those people *are* motivated by hate (as well as disgust); and, again, they are the ones who are now in power: those who are anti-gay as well as anti-trans, those who mock and jeer rather than try to help.
Those are not you, nor (I presume) most of your readers. But they have been, in this fight, your allies. I am not saying that you were wrong to ally with them; every struggle brings together disparate viewpoints. But now that you're winning, you have to ask yourself who you rode to victory with, and what they are doing. And, I would hope, join trans people in standing up to them—if only to preserve gay and lesbian rights, which are also now at threat.
Acknowledging all this would not only be (in my view) the moral thing to do; it would also *increase your credibility with trans kids*. If you say precisely what you suggest to them, then they may well not listen, because you are saying one thing that they know to be false: that they are not hated. They, at least, see the hatred in your allies. Too often, I admit, they mistake your genuine concern for that hatred. But they are not wrong to see that it does exist. If you deny this, well, they won't believe anything you say. Maybe if you acknowledge it—and especially if you stand with them against it—they will be more likely to listen to the rest.
So I would suggest you say: you are not as threatened as you believe; you are stronger than you think; you can endure this and flourish in life. But you ARE hated. And although we do not share your ideology, and although we in fact do share some beliefs with those who hate you, we will nevertheless do all in our power to protect you from the *genuine* hatred that you do, in fact, face now.
I think it would be a stronger message. And a truer one.
I very much appreciate you participating in this discussion and offering these suggestions. Yes, it's true, some people are hateful. Some people hate Jews, or Christians, or Americans, or Arabs...we're tribal animals. We hate people for their social groupings. When you opt into this group, people may hate "you" for being part of it. People call me gender-critical and hate me because of it, but I'm not gender-critical or anti-trans or an activist—the labels affixed to me by others. But at the individual level, they don't know me, so they don't actually hate me. And I have no control over how people feel about groups I may or may not belong to. So I would add this. Thoughts?
Thoughts:
1. I mostly agree with your reply. I certainly think "we're tribal animals... at the individual level, they don't know me, so they don't actually hate me" is a good message to give to trans kids who today feel threatened. But I guess I would revise it to reflect the fact that they *are* hated, and even are, in some ways, threatened, even if you don't regard (e.g.) ending medical interventions as a threat. Be a little less reassuring, and a little more empathetic, while keeping the basic message.
2. At the same time, I do think that " Some people hate Jews, or Christians, or Americans, or Arabs...we're tribal animals. We hate people for their social groupings", while completely true, also downplays matters slightly when said internally by gender critical feminists. Of course people hate all those groups, but not steadily and not equally and not in the same ways. Take Jews (I'm Jewish (Yorick is but a Penn name)): while anti-semitism seems, alas, eternal, there has been a real uptick in anti-semitism in the U.S. recently, which should not be downplayed by equating it with anti-Christian or anti-American sentiment; it should be spoken against, especially by those who are superficially similar to those who propound it (i.e. since both are Christians) . Similarly, the Trump administration is causing pain in all sorts of directions, it is singling out for hate trans people (and immigrants); they are the immediate targets of the current two-minute hate. So I think we should take especial note of it. I would say, in particular, that those who are gender critical should take especial note of it, since they can do the most good, in, so to speak, both directions: both by standing up to their erstwhile allies and saying "we meant this but not THAT"), and by reassuring trans people that indeed not all their opponents are enemies. I do not blame gender critical people for the triumph of homophobes and those who genuinely wish trans people harm, but I do think they are in an unusual strong position to mitigate it and thus ought to. Even if that violates the basic social grouping they identify with.
3. I'm not surprised you don't identify as anti-trans (as I said, it's a poor term, I am trying to come up with a term that will include both gender-critical feminists and also genuinely anti-trans people), but I am curious why you wouldn't describe yourself as gender critical. Can you say more?
4. I am very grateful for your willingness to engage, which (to my frustration) is all-too-rare on this topic (moreso, I dare say, by my side than yours, but I have seen (and experienced) it from both.
Yes, I share your concern that since "our" side never admitted that there were huge problems and never relented or pulled back, this hard line approach to stopping is going too far in the other direction. I met a woman from South Carolina who told me that there really was hatred for this class or category of young people brewing. From my perspective, we liberals brought it on by not embracing the Cass Review, the SRs, detransitioners, the unfathomably high suicide rate in the Chen paper, etc. We had off-ramps galore, and nobody took them. And now we have...this moment. Thanks for being in here with us and offering this perspective. Please continue to do so.
I agree that there were off-ramps not taken. I wish the whole temperature on this conversation had been turned down, long ago. I believe there is a moderate middle which could be assembled, with enough patience and calm. (Although when I had a substack making that argument, I convinced, as far as I know, precisely no one, and had people from both sides spewing disdain in my direction, so perhaps I am wrong.)
Thanks for being open to multiple perspectives. I appreciate your work,, and learning about your point of view.
This ongoing conversation is very insightful, helpful.
I would like to understand more about the certainty that trans kids are hated--as you suggest here--ever and always. Is it not more fear and misunderstanding than hate?
I agree that there is fear and misunderstanding aplenty. But I feel fairly sure there is hate too. The reason I think so is that reading what people say online, there are people who express disgust and revulsion in hateful terms, who say things simply to be cruel, and who express an utter lack of concern for the well-being of trans kids. Those, for me, read as hatred.
I would add that the reason you are called an anti-trans, gender critical activist is because you use their terminology. The term “trans-identified” for example, is a slur, and is used exclusively by members of the gender critical ideology, and by neo-Nazis.
It's not a slur. It's a neutral descriptor. Your considering it a slur doesn't make it so. Social contagion is also a neutral descriptor. Some people describe themselves as transgender. They haven't changed sex. They're no different from other people in their sex. We need neutral language. That's what I'm striving for.
It is indeed a slur. As the partner of a trans person, and someone who works with numerous trans people, it is *absolutely* a slur. It’s not used in civilized conversations. It is absolutely NOT neutral, and is terminology coined by gender critical extremists. They refer to transgender women and girls as “Tims” or “trans identifying males” and trans men and boys and “tifs” trans identifying females”. It’s disgusting, not to mention incorrect.
Referring to trans people as a social contagion is also not in any way a neutral descriptor. That is even more insidious, and is a common canard of the extreme far right. It’s clear to me now that you have been entirely radicalized by the gender critical religion.
No one describes themselves as transgender. Being trans is an immutable characteristic. You cannot identify being trans any more than one can identify as having green eyes, or having diabetes, or being 6 feet tall. You either are or you aren’t. It’s not a matter of identity.
Transsexuals, who fall under the category of transgender, undergo sex change. Not all trans people are transsexual.
I agree that they are no different from other people of their sex and are entitled to all the same rights and protections. Trans women are women, and deserve all the exact same rights as cis women. Vice versa for trans men.
We do absolutely need neutral language. I agree. Which is why I implore you do abandon slurs like “trans identified/trans identifying” and social contagion. Both are utterly disgusting, and you will certainly not be able to convince anyone who is not an extremist to come to the table by using such slurs. Adopt neutral language. The neutral terms are transgender kids/people. Not “trans identifying kids”. You can’t identify as trans. It’s an immutable characteristic. The insinuation that it is a matter of choice is a deliberate attempt to legitimize conversion therapy and to eliminate trans people as a distinct minority.
Your trans partner and trans friends taking offense at it doesn’t make it a slur. 😂
It’s a slur because I said it’s a slur! 😂
I agree with you for the most part, as a supporter of trans rights, except for one thing: the gender critical movement *definitely* hates trans people, especially women and girls. The gender critical ideology was borne directly out of phrenological theories invented by the Nazis.
I genuinely believe there are people who hold bigotries against trans people that may not be hateful deep in their hearts, especially among fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, but the gender critical ideology is another matter entirely. It’s a hate movement from its inception.
Gender Affirmative Care was developed by John Money, who was seeking a medical cure for homosexuality. Go take a look.
That's not how I see it. But Money did believe "gender identity" was malleable before age three and he randomly "assigned" a sex to some young people with intersex conditions, and sometimes approved surgeries to match (if I remember correctly)...and most of those assignments worked out fine, at least according to a biography of Money I read. Of course, it very much did not in the case of David Reimer, but he didn't have an intersex condition. I will say that these early treatments may have been "successful" on one population, depending on how you define that word, but they were never intended for the entire population.
Indeed, Money is well liked by Gender criticals as he was a proponent of conversion therapy, but he is reviled by trans people for his horrific abuse against Reimer and other kids, trans and intersex.
His theories on gender have all been discredited. It’s widely acknowledged now that gender identity is inborn and biological, is likely a complex mix of sexual biology, individual neurology, genes and environmental factors (particularly in utero).
No, a baby had his penis accidentally chopped off so he (Money)devised an experiment that failed: he told the patents to raise him as a girl…
This was not GAC, this was an ad hoc opportunist experiment on a child - the child eventually committed suicide in his 30’s
This is false. The first sex reassignment procedures were performed in the late 20s, and the concept of transsexuality were formed by doctors in the early 20th century.
John Money is not liked by trans people, though he is heralded as a folk hero by gender criticals. Money believed that “gender” was simply a matter of socialization, and was a strong proponent of anti-trans conversion therapy. His most notable experiment was on David Reimer, a young trans man who was assigned female shortly after birth due to a botched circumcision. Once Reimer started displaying signs of gender dysphoria at the age of around 3, Money performed conversion therapy on him in an attempt to convince him he was a girl. The experiment failed horrifically. Reimer came out as trans when he was 12, underwent medical transition to male as a teenager, but even post transition he still suffered from severe dysphoria and PTSD from his experiences in childhood, and sadly took his own life.
David was born male. He was injured in a circumcision accident. John Money tried to turn him into a girl. It failed. David Reimer reclaimed his birthright as a male. He wasn't a trans man. Trans men are born with ovaries. David was born with testicles.
I must say, this is probably the most impressive historical contortionist act I have seen on David Reimer's story, however. I'm genuinely astonished, but not in a good way.
He was, but he was reassigned female shortly after birth. Indeed, Money was convinced that gender was just socialization, as gender criticals today insist. He performed conversion therapy on Reimer to make him accept that he was female. It didn’t work.
Reimer absolutely was a trans man. There is no prerequisite of having ovaries to be trans. You can have any organs. You just have to be assigned the wrong sex. Reimer was trans. He was assigned female, and later claimed his true gender and transitioned to male.
I do agree, your twisting of David Reimer’s life and story is probably the most disturbing and impressive historical contortion/revisionism I’ve ever seen. And not in a good way. Particularly gruesome given that Money is a hero among gender criticals, and Reimer was a trans rights supporter when he lived and opposed the gender critical religion.
John Money is a monster among gender criticals and intersex people. If you genuinely want to know who lionized him, here's a suggestion:
Go onto the John Money Wikipedia page. Look up who gave him prestigious awards and a high salary.
David wasn't "assigned female" by the accident. Cutting off a male penis doesn't assign a sex. He was an injured little boy.
Money decided that a boy without a penis was worthless so he castrated the toddler.
I am not particularly religious and I am guessing you aren’t either, but when I read this article the phrase just rose in my head: You are doing God’s work, Lisa.
Sadly, this article uses a lot of deeply religious terminology (“trans identified” is actually not just religious terminology, but actually a slur), and endorses opposition to the rights and healthcare of trans people under a religious pretext.
This isn't religious language or a slur, it's heresy. Under the teachings of the Gender Faith, gender identity is absolute Truth. The term "trans identified" questions this doctrine, and is thus deeply offensive to the faithful.
There are certainly situations where blasphemy is extremely rude and socially inappropriate because it hurts people's feelings. Going into a designated Queer space and talking about "trans identified" is just as rude as going into a Catholic Church and yelling that the trinity is bullshit.
But Substack is public space and freedom of speech is more important than propriety.
In my opinion anyway.
Indeed, it is both religious language and a slur. I will concede however that it is indeed used to avoid heresy, as to acknowledge the material, objective and biological reality of gender identity would be heretical according to the tenets of the gender critical religion.
The term “trans identified” is a slur, and is based on the doctrine that gender identity either doesn’t exist at all, or is a matter of personal choice/identity, both of which are explicitly counterfactual and pseudoscientific assertions, but are held as divine revelations by members of the gender critical cult.
I’m not surprised concerned with any rudeness that comes from committing blasphemy against the gender critical religion. Whilst members of your faith are entitled to your supernatural beliefs, you cannot force others to submit to them, especially when they are pseudoscientific, counterfactual and morally wrong. I don’t care at all about the feelings of gender criticals, nor the tradcaths they descended from ideologically, and especially not the Nazis who founded your religion. Indeed, telling a gender critical that the slur “trans identified” is offensive, especially when it’s used in religious propaganda meant to persecute children for the sin of being trans and existing despite the gender critical dogma stating that said people shouldn’t exist, would be no different than walking into a fundamentalist Christian Church and telling them that the term “sodomite” is a slur against gay people, whom their religion considers abominations meant to be persecuted for the sin of existing in a way that is incompatible with their faith, much as members of the gender critical religion treat trans people.
Your opinion is sadly wrong, as is your religion. Keep it to yourself. Stop trying to take rights away from trans people because of your pseudoscientific religious beliefs.
There is no material, objective and biological reality of gender identity. If there was, it would be used as a diagnostic criteria and the vast majority of folks seeking "gender affirmation" would be turned away, just like people who DON'T have cancer are not permitted to demand chemotherapy.
Gender identity is a doctrine, as True as the trinity. That is, perfect Truth to the believers, and a little weird for non-believers.
There's evidence of some kind of neurological "body map" that can misalign with actual body. But it's not unique to the reproductive system. Disambiguating it from body dysmorphia is tricky.
Except there is. There is about 100 years worth of medical evidence proving its existence, and it is acknowledged by all medical professionals and institutions. The facts are not on your side.
And what? There is ABSOLUTELY a diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria. It’s been in multiple DSMs. Also, the vast majority of people who seek gender affirming care *are* turned away.
No. Gender identity is a fact. Objective. Measurable. Biological. Denying it, is the equivalent of denying the earth being spheroid. You are an adherent of a pseudoscientific religious dogma. It is also no wonder why there is such a huge overlap between flat earthers, gender criticals and anti-vaxxers. All pseudoscientific cults.
The last paragraph you mentioned is exactly what gender dysphoria is.
In the US, people get turned away from "gender affirmative care" for the same reasons they get turned away from liposuction and face lifts: money. I have yet to hear of a single person being turned away because they don't meet the diagnostic criteria in the last decade.
30 years ago, MOST people were indeed turned away. The gatekeepers did their jobs and "gender affirmative care" was an extreme treatment for an incredibly rare medical condition. That is no longer the case. Advocating for that standard is why Kenneth Zucker was driven out of WPATH.
Lisa this is beautiful. And practical. We can use these suggestions. Thank you. Those of us in this fight to end the scandal know that media is a HUGE part of the social contagion and the push to normalize this in society, but this writing really stopped me. The media has had a WAY bigger role in this than is recognized even as many people are trying to bring that fact out of the shadows. It’s just so so so so SO much more than may ever be known. I hope one day people do the research and write thesis papers on the quantitative effects of media’s lies, participation, propaganda, cover up and intentional deceit about gender, its so-called medical treatment, implying men are women and the trampling of women and girls’ rights. That doesn’t even touch on social media’s permanent, detrimental effects.
Hi there, just want to remind you that there is no “social contagion”. And the media is overwhelmingly anti-trans in any case, so if there was a socially contagious aspect to being trans (there isn’t), you’d see a decline in number of trans people, not an increase. Instead, the statistics have actually not changed in over 20 years. Number of people diagnosed with gender dysphoria remains at around 0.7% of the population. No increase except that the number of transgender men and boys is now equal to transgender women and girls, and more people are seeking medical transition rather than mere social transition.
Happily though, on your second point, there is some research on on the quantitative effects of the media’s lies, participation, propaganda, cover up and intentional deceit about gender, their disinformation campaigns against accepted science and medical care, calling men (trans men specifically) women and women (specifically trans women and girls) men, and the trampling of the rights of women and girls, both cis and trans. It’s been horrific. The literature is horrific though, as the anti-trans movement has harmed so many in the most terrible ways, and the media is to blame for promoting the anti-trans movement so vociferously.
Sadly, with gender critical extremists like Elon and Zuckerberg and the Chinese Government at the helm of the biggest social media companies, the horrible effects of social media on trans people is only going to get far far worse.
Thank you, Lisa. These are the wise words kids should hear their whole lives. Our vulnerable-ing of kids (maybe we can make up a new word: “vulnerabullying”) has been a primary cause of this highly damaging trend.
In an effort to attune more to our kids than the previous generation (if many gen z’s parents were often dismissed by their own parents, as I experienced), we made a vital mistake by coddling them and treating them simultaneously like babies (“don’t get hurt”) and adults (“you decide, baby”). We, gen z’s parents, have also believed that we could have it all - a thriving career, amazing health (if we just do everything right), and an ideal marriage and family life. The stress and pressure kept us on our phones and chasing the best lifestyle, body, and marriage, and comfortable with our kids burying their heads in their electronic devices…rather than taking them, for example, camping.
I will keep your suggested wise words of advice to vocalize to anyone who could use the reminder.
Hi there, I know multiple trans minors Andy partner is trans, and I would strongly advise against that. This article uses anti-trans slurs such as “trans-identifying kids”, and pushes some very pernicious medical disinformation.
As a specialist in mental health, I must say that everything you said here was 100% spot on. For kids who are already emotionally vulnerable, the absolute worst thing you can do to them is to reinforce their beliefs that they are hated, that they are destined to live as powerless victims. What the adults really should be focusing on is helping these kids achieve a strong sense of resilience and self-efficacy.
I don’t disagree, but I think nowadays especially, in places particularly where gender affirming care bans, bathroom bans and sports bans have been implemented, it’s more important to remind them that they’re loved and supported, not to lie to them and to pretend that anti-trans activists intent on stripping them of their civil rights don’t hate them. Lying is never a good thing to do, especially not under the spurious assumption that lying to them will somehow make them more resilient and self-sufficient.
I know and work with many trans people, including kids, and while in a safe area where there are no sports bans, no healthcare restrictions and no bathroom bans, and while in a perfect world they would not have to fear the tidal wave of pseudoscientific anti-trans religious bigotry that seems to have engulfed the entire world, the trans youngsters I know do not feel or act like powerless victims knowing these facts. They’re more resilient than ever, and are motivated to fight for their rights, advocate for themselves and cultivate strong communities, with family, friends and allies.
Trans people are not being banned from toilets, just limited to using either the unisex facilities or the facilities designated for their sex.
Trans people are not being banned from sports, just limited to participation in the co-ed division or the division designated for their sex.
This is called " being treated like everyone else."
This is the message that people need to hear most! Nobody will explode if they don’t get chemically and/or surgically altered to appear more like the opposite sex. Or if others don’t refer to it treat them as if they are the opposite sex.
Even if someone has a strong preference for those things and could theoretically be happier if they get them, they are not required for any semblance of happiness. And, given all of the negative aspects of those things - from incontinence, bone density issues, infertility, sexual dysfunction, infections, and increased risk of numerous diseases and health problems, including strokes and heart attacks and cancer, as well as the burden of having to play-act at being something you physically are not, it should be a goal to try to live without those things if possible.
Thus, if one is potentially deprived of those things. It is no tragedy!! (And it just might be a blessing in disguise.)
"You don’t need other people’s approval to feel safe."
That's the big one because it is exactly the opposite of what the trans movement has been selling.
This is false. The trans community has been saying no such thing. There will always be religious and pseudoscientific ideologues who are against trans people. The issue is not their approval. It’s that said ideologies are not content with merely disapproving, they are intent on stripping human and civil rights away from trans people. In an ideal world, it would be good to tell a trans girl to simply not care about other people’s approval and use the women’s bathroom and play women’s sports with her friends. But in many places, that could land said trans girl in a men’s prison, where she will almost certainly either be assaulted and raped, or held in solitary.
So it’s not a simple live and let live situation. If it was, trans people wouldn’t have to worry about other people’s disapproval. But it’s not mere disapproval. It’s the stripping of trans people of their human and civil rights that is the threat to the safety and wellbeing of trans people, especially women and girls.
Pitch perfect, Lisa. Thank you so much.
exactly. thank you!
and the news agencies reporting hysteria and reporting panic uncritically!
the trevor project study is unreliable, to say the least....
It’s not really hysteria at all, as in the US some hospitals are indeed complying in advance and denying healthcare to trans patients that are minors.
My guess is you simply do not want the myriad of studies all proving the suicidality rates of trans kids skyrocketing after anti-trans laws are enacted because you know you’re complicit in their passing. The NHS in England attempted to cover up the enormous suicide spike in trans minors after they banned puberty blockers. It was a scandal of proportions we have never before seen in modern medicine, yet the media barely said a peep about it, likely because they were complicit in their ban.
🙌
Perhaps we can also direct people to the concepts and skills offered in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. It's very helpful for handling emotional dysregulation and distress.
CBT is great, but it doesn’t treat gender dysphoria. There is no treatment for gender dysphoria except medical sex transition.
1) I said DBT not CBT.
2) What is effective depends on the source of the gender dysphoria. For example, a female with a history of sexual abuse may benefit from an investigation of the causes of the dysphoria rather than medical intervention. A one-size-fits-all approach does not make sense.
I love this focus on agency and empowerment.
Ah, Lisa. I was hoping for someone smart and competent to say something, well, smart and competent about this.
Add Jack Turban to your list of offenders.
Turban: ' The company told its users (3 billion on Facebook alone) that bullying LGBT people is acceptable. Roughly 1:3 LGBT kids report being bullied in the past year. And this leads to dramatically elevated rates of suicide attempts. By normalizing bullying, Meta is ensuring that these suicidality rates intensify. And vulnerable kids and their families are going to pay the price.'
https://substack.com/@jackturban/note/p-156413336?r=1ur2sq
Such therapy is illegal in the majority of states. It's the next biggest problem to deal with after the bans of youth related drug and surgical processes are in place.