Outstanding piece! I have a suggestion concerning the fifth point, which is:
"5) that at least some mature adults who chose to transition eventually realized this was not necessary and, perhaps, they could have alleviated their mental suffering in less physically invasive, mentally taxing ways, and, for the youth transitioning today, the rate of regret is as of yet unknown, but appears to be growing by leaps and bounds;"
When I listened to Episode 140 of the "Gender: A Wider Lens" podcast in which the hosts interviewed detransitioner Chloe Cole on stage at Genspect's recent Denver conference, I was shocked to learn that Ms. Cole had been put on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and had her breasts removed without ever having been told by her health-care professionals that there was a type of person known as a "detransitioner." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uxqeEDrZgY
If that's correct, it means that the informed consent documents her licensed providers gave her were gravely deficient. To give informed consent to a treatment or procedure, a patient needs to understand the known consequences. What could be more relevant to a would-be transitioner than: 1) some people regret their decisions so much that they decide to undo the medical treatments they underwent, at least to the extent such a thing is possible; 2) those people are called detransitioners?
Sure, someone who is motivated enough to initiate medical treatment for, say, gender dysphoria, might not be receptive to hearing about detransitioners then, but that does not give a physician the right to keep the patient entirely in the dark on the subject before prescribing pills or wielding the scalpel.
Knowledge is power, and by failing to disclose detransition and detransitioners in their informed consent documents health care professionals are disempowering their patients. It is the sort of omission that effectively turns therapists and physicians who should be objective practitioners of a science-informed discipline into trans activists.
OMG everything you write is absolutely 100% correct, true, real, rational and logical, all human knowledge and thought which seems to have been abandoned by this odd, disquieting haze that has descended over a portion of the population like the plot of a sci-fi/horror movie. It is so obvious to some of us but there are so many people who are oblivious and indoctrinated by this insidious wave of utter blindness to a future full of medically altered human wrecks! I always thought there were ignorant people in the world and the terms dumb, stupid and idiotic obviously exist for a reason (in all languages too) but how did this become something that our youth have embraced and adults have pushed? How did stupidity become acceptable and even applauded? Sorry to rant but let’s keep calling this ridiculousness out! I’m so relieved that we have been forced out of our comfort zones enough to end this destructive narrative. Thank you.
I wish this could be posted in BIG letters on billboards across the country "It is a FACT that nobody is actually born in the "wrong body," which is a non-sensical notion with no scientific basis and a complete lack of logic, and "gender dysphoria" is, in fact, a mental disorder."
“Society Must Also Become Aware of the Truth about Transition!”
“Amen” to that. I expect that most people would be – or should be – absolutely horrified if they really knew and understood that “gender affirming care” often meant the butchering of dysphoric and autistic children – basically castrating them, turning them into sexless eunuchs.
Far too many people seem to “think” that “sex changes” are actually possible, probably because they subscribe to the Kindergarten Cop definitions for the sexes, i.e., boys have penises and girls have vaginas. “Change your genitalia, change your sex! Act now! Offer ends soon!” 🙄 Bloody criminal that anyone, much less “doctors” should be giving any credence or currency to that “idea”.
And even some on “our side” do so, by intent or inadvertently. For example see Christopher Rufo’s article, and our subsequent conversation:
CR: “It's not a perfect term, but ‘child sex-change procedure’ is immediately understandable to the public and much more accurate regarding its intention—which, yes, is impossible—than ‘gender-affirming care,’ the new euphemism they're pushing.
If “sex-change procedure” is “understandable to the public” – particularly as something within the realm of possibility – then our educational system is a very large part of the problem. As is Rufo for pandering to egregious scientific illiteracy.
Call a spade an effen shovel there Christopher.
But quite agree with your differentiation between “various feminine or masculine characteristics” – basically our sexually dimorphic personalities, our “genders” – and “whether an individual is male or female” – our sexes. Major part of the whole problem is the insistence by far too many that “sex” and “gender” are synonymous; fairly “nice” if imperfect exposition on that theme here:
Though, somewhat sadly, words like “man” and “woman” now have some currency both as sexes – i.e., “adult human males/females” – and as genders – i.e., “anyone who has any sort of a passing resemblance to adult human males/females”. See Merriam-Webster’s Usage Note:
I agree with you for the most part, Steersman, except that I am not into describing a person's personality in terms of "having a gender". You pretty much have to be someone who is knee deep in all of this for that not to confuse/muddy matters. And, if my daughter enjoyed playing with all manner of toys ("boys" and "girls") but played with them in a gentle manner, to what "gender" do we "assign" her? I get it that one might be tempted to use "gender" in a fancy/university way but alot of folks have historically used it to avoid saying "sex" - like a Victorian saying "limb" instead of "arm" or "leg". Your average person is still gonna say "gender" interchangeably with "sex" sometimes. I basically don't use the word. To me a guy in a dress is just a guy in a dress, not someone displaying "gender".
I take your point about the term "sex change". It isn't possible. The best that could be said about it is that it is one step better/away from "gender affirmation medicine" which is truly a medical scandal. I agree with you that the "bikini" view of sex is nonsense. Every bit of us is sexed from birth and cannot be changed. Yeah, even our dictionaries are corrupted with this. But, things can change again and must. I think all of DIE/Woke has to go. - LM
A belated "thank you" for your comment there "LM". 🙂 Emphasizes a couple of useful points.
Particularly agree with your "average person is gonna say 'gender' interchangeably with 'sex'". But that's part of the problem -- many people using the same words in contradictory ways:
The whole concept of "gender" is something of a "lab leak" phenomenon 😉🙂, a dog's breakfast, a Frankensteinian monster that's run amok, but there IS some merit in the idea. And it's not really possible to turn the transloonie tide -- so to speak -- until we get down to brass tacks, to discussing the uses and misuses of the terminology. Apropos of which, you might take a gander at a recent post -- not paywalled or hidden -- over at Reality's Last Stand on the recent conference put on by Genspect:
Of particular note is a downloadable PDF of Genspect's "mission statement", their "Gender Framework" to replace WPATH's ideological claptrap. Couple of salient quotes therefrom:
Genspect: "1.1.3 ‘Gender’ is a spectrum:
Few topics have generated as much confusion in recent years as the distinction between the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender.’ While many people use these terms interchangeably, the field of gender studies differentiates between them. Here, ‘gender’ describes the set of expected social roles, behaviors, and expressions traditionally linked to one's sex. ....
Within the medical field, what is often termed as a person’s ‘gender’ can be viewed as a rough classification based on their self-assessment of how closely their personality, preferences, and behavioral traits align with conventional definitions of masculinity and femininity."
Quite a lengthy document which I've only skimmed so far, but I think they "affirm" that "gender" isn't at all a chimera, that it has some use in some important discussions. Though I may still have a bone or two to pick with them on their definitions for the sexes which look no better than folk-biology.
But to answer your hypothetical question about your daughter "playing with all manner of toys". Part of the problem there is that many people don't have a good handle on some basic principles, mostly of statistics. Which is maybe not surprising given that most people don't need them in their day to day lives, and given that many so-called biologists, and even some lawyers and feminists (*cough Helen Dale & Louise Perry *cough), have made a dog's breakfast out of the concept. See my "Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics" for details:
But another part of the problem there is that many people don't understand that people can be somewhat masculine on some traits, somewhat feminine on others, and "genderless" on still others.
Part and parcel of the idea of a multidimensional gender spectrum. See my Welcome post, particularly the section on "Rationalized Gender" for details:
But I assume your "bikini view of sex" is the Kindergarten Cop versions? If so, "nonsense" indeed. Though "sexed from birth" depends on how you define "male" and "female" which is very much of an open question.
"Though "sexed from birth" depends on how you define "male" and "female" which is very much of an open question." I strongly disagree with this. Sex is an inescapable binary biological fact - male and female - with some few people suffering a genetic defect within those two baskets.
Also, though some like to discuss a concept of "gender" as separate from sex it is pretty much academic and I find "personality" much more real.
I will say that Marxist Queer Theory and the Concept of "Gender Identity" are a University Lab Leak.
It is a little simplistic to say that Dr. John Money "coined" the term Gender Identity but it is not too far off. Helen Joyce has a little more history in her book "Trans". I do think we are better off with Sex (binary) and Personality (as varied as there are people) and throwing "gender" on the junk heap.
"John Money: The Pro-Pedophile Pervert Who Invented “Gender”"
Love this response! Spot on and to the point. That’s what’s lacking now. Geez why do people have to complicate simple, easy concepts with “University Lab Leak” speak.( I like that term and I’ll be using it! ) I used to employ the rule “If you can’t win the argument bamboozle them with bullshit.” This applies in so many instances now just listen to anything Neill Degrassi-Tyson the “astrophysicist” has to espouse on the transgender “issue”. Pure BS.
Huh, N D-T got really agitated, had a melt-down. Maybe he is a secret cross dresser Auto-gyno? This used to be considered a paraphilia. But, whatever. People have those (different from being homosexual) and we do not need to redefine what male and female are to accommodate them.
What is "an inescapable binary biological fact" is that those organisms -- of all anisogamous species including the human one -- which have functional gonads -- of either of two types -- can reproduce and that those who don't can't. What we DEFINE "male" and "female" as is very much a matter of choice, of social construction.
You might actually try reading what the standard biological definitions for the sexes actually say. And not what you -- and too many others -- want them to say:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
In which case we say that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being sexless.
And "gender separate from sex" is hardly "academic" when the conflation of reproductive abilities and personalities -- which you're contributing to -- is what is corrupting much of biology, education, and government. But sure, "personality" is "real". Though, as I've indicated, that is more or less what Genspect DEFINES "gender" as. So you're basically saying that "gender" is real.
While the whole concept of "gender" is something of a dog's breakfast, it has a great deal of value in its recognition that there ARE substantial differences, on average, between the personalities of men and women. You might actually try reading the 4th Wave Now article that I've linked here several times now:
I have read so many of these PITT posts and really appreciate the people who write here to share stories, thoughts, and feelings. You say exactly how I feel and its so nicely written. This post is inspiring me to copy and post it to my FB page. I am becoming braver about sharing and posting because unfortunately i can relate to so many if not all of these posts. Thank you so much for writing it. I hope to one day send in my thoughts i guess i just keep holding out in hopes to be able to send a story of dissistance ❤️
We can never quite stamp out the cult of transition in America, because America. Adults are allowed to join any cult they want, including Skoptic cults. However, the reason we don't see more Jonestowns and Heaven's Gates is that those cults raised awareness of the problem. Mass consciousness of this problem witll not eliminate it, but it can attenuate the harm.
You might want to consider taking some responsibility for that state of affairs by your refusal to even think there's any merit at all in the concepts of gender and gender identity:
You've admitted yourself that there are feminine and masculine personality traits. THAT is what the "theory" MEANS by "gender". You're basically saying that the theory is "correct".
Devils in the details. If you don't want to grapple with them then you don't have much of a leg to stand on when they come around to bite you in the arse.
You too might want to take a close look at the Reality's Last Stand post from Genspect and their "mission statement" (all 330 pages):
Of particular note is a downloadable PDF of Genspect's "mission statement", their "Gender Framework" to replace WPATH's ideological claptrap. Couple of salient quotes therefrom:
Genspect: "1.1.3 ‘Gender’ is a spectrum:
Few topics have generated as much confusion in recent years as the distinction between the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender.’ While many people use these terms interchangeably, the field of gender studies differentiates between them. Here, ‘gender’ describes the set of expected social roles, behaviors, and expressions traditionally linked to one's sex. ....
Within the medical field, what is often termed as a person’s ‘gender’ can be viewed as a rough classification based on their self-assessment of how closely their personality, preferences, and behavioral traits align with conventional definitions of masculinity and femininity."
How am I personally responsible for the harms of pediatric sex trait modification? And how is that related to my personal metaphysics? Explain using facts. I do not have time for a screed. Answer in a few sentences or GTFO.
Teaching KIDS that Drs guess their gender at birth has NO biological science. It’s all psychobabble & I have a psych degree. I studied gender sciences. Go back & read the older Drs who were “cancelled”.
Do you know the Dr who created theory was a pedophile who’s first Patient committed suicide 😐.
Suicide rates post transition are astronomical.. it does NOT fix the underlying issues in 99% of people
Not directly but indirectly. You insist on seeing and characterizing gender/gender-identity as JUST some sort of a religion. And there's SOME merit in doing so -- Iranian-Canadian physician & anthropologist Sahar Sadjadi characterizes gender identity as a "merging of science, magic, and religion":
But there is STILL some science there which you apparently refuse to even consider. The OP quite reasonably talks about "various feminine or masculine characteristics” – basically our sexually dimorphic personalities, our “genders”. You might want to try reading the article a bit more closely for elaborations on that theme. And that "bprice.substack" article I'd linked above. And even Wright's co-authored piece which emphasizes those feminine and masculine characteristics:
Steersman, this is woo. Wright and Caignan and Heying and a strong cast of very knowledgeable people just spent a weekend explaining to me and many parents of this Substack why bimodal distribution of "gendered" behaviors does not prove the existence of gender angels at all. You cannot make me join your weird cult or use magic pronouns or respect your gender authoritah. You cannot, because America. It is not going to happen.
Not sure what conference you went to, but you might actually try reading -- if there aren't too many sentences there for you ... -- a guest post on Reality's Last Stand by a Genspect factotum:
Of particular note is a downloadable PDF of Genspect's "mission statement", their "Gender Framework" to replace WPATH's ideological claptrap. Couple of salient quotes therefrom:
Genspect: "1.1.3 ‘Gender’ is a spectrum:
Few topics have generated as much confusion in recent years as the distinction between the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender.’ While many people use these terms interchangeably, the field of gender studies differentiates between them. Here, ‘gender’ describes the set of expected social roles, behaviors, and expressions traditionally linked to one's sex. ....
Within the medical field, what is often termed as a person’s ‘gender’ can be viewed as a rough classification based on their self-assessment of how closely their personality, preferences, and behavioral traits align with conventional definitions of masculinity and femininity."
Quite a lengthy document which I've only skimmed so far, but I think they "affirm" that "gender" isn't at all a chimera, that it has some use in some important discussions. Though I may still have a bone or two to pick with them on their definitions for the sexes which look no better than folk-biology.
Steers. You are embarrassing yourself. You don't realize this because you have not tried it in a public debate setting. The magic only works in Second Life. Grow up.
Where the fuck did I say ANYTHING about "gendered angels"? You're trying to thrash the hell out of strawmen.
Many people DEFINE those masculine and feminine personalities AS genders. They assert that, in their lexicons, "masculine" and "feminine" are two halves of a gender spectrum -- like the reddish and bluish halves of the colour spectrum: millions of colours, of "genders" in each half. "genders" are sexually dimorphic personalities & behaviours.
You seriously think that the late great Justice Anton Scalia was peddling "gender angels"?
Scalia: “The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine is to male.”
There IS a difference between sex -- reproductive abilities -- and gender -- psychology.
Did you bother to even open the 4th Wave Now article? You have any clue at all as to what the graph therein actually means? It's a clear indication of substantial differences -- on average -- in the behaviours of men and women.
You're so fixated on your own narrow-minded view that you can't even think there's another way of looking at the issue.
Steers I spent the weekend in the room with both authors of that piece you keep waving at me as they explained why "two halves of a gender spectrum" is nonsense. Scalia noting the correspondences of words is not proof that "gender identity" exists outside of someone's head. There is no objective measure of "gender identity" that is not a performative sexist stereotype or medicalized trope.
It is telling that you project "fixation" on me. You constantly flog this ridiculous Gish gallop of gibberish, even pay subscriptions, in order to "educate" us all on the immaterial reality of "gender identity." Most people are too polite to tell you that you are a kook. I am not, and this is what you call "narrow-minded." I either say you are wrong (because you are wrong) or I ignore you. No amount of money or name-calling will alter this dynamic. What is the definition of insanity again?
I completely agree!! My daughter was already 18 when she “decided” she was trans and is now 20. Under 0 circumstances is she able to make a decision like that. Most of these kids, as we know, have underlying/comorbid conditions like ASD and depression. They need several years of therapy before medical transition is even considered. If the world of psychology says it takes upwards of a year to diagnose bipolar or borderline then surely it would take or should take it at least that long.
And that, I think, hits it right on the head. If we are going for incremental change here (which is usually the most or only realistic plan in politics and society) it would make so much more sense to lobby for a standard of care that requires a certain amount of psychotherapy as well as stability and reasonable functioning of any and all comorbid mental disorders prior to evaluating anyone for these treatments, rather than to place an arbitrary age limit above which it is basically surgery on demand.
And, this is obviously conjecture but had your-or any-child decided they were trans at 17 years and 8 months, the four month delay is highly unlikely to deter them much and actually would seem just as likely if not moreso to simply add fuel to their fire and increase the urgency of their desire to get that first prescription at 1201am on their 18th birthdays.
Just had a conversation with me 18 year old senior. He would like to take a gap year before college to medically transition and magically metamorphosize into a girl. I thought we were making some progress. I thought I might be seeing signs of desistance I feel so depleted.
I pray for your family he doesn't follow through. I feel like even if they at least hear a few things on the side effects it will create enough doubt to hold off long enough for him to wake. You know you need to keep loving him to pieces and a little truth bomb here and there shouldnt hurt either. You will get through this! Make sure you take time for yourself. We are so depleted from this fight ❤️
Don’t give up hope. My son as a senior said the same thing after I thought he was desisting. He moved out but he has not medicalized. He’s been living on his own for over a year. He even cut his hair short. He is not in contact with us but maybe it’s helping him. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because he can that he doesn’t.
The operative point isn't age of consent or even "consent" at all. If the only restriction you can allow on human behavior is consent, the mass of normal people will live in a society held hostage by the weirdos. Arguably, we already do.
The question isn't, "What age should people be allowed to consent to puberty blockers?" The question is, "Are men and women fundamentally different?" This question touches are far more than trans. It touches on gender roles, gay rights, and many other liberal/conservative flashpoints. But that is the proper question.
If you answer that question "no", you will have no ground to stand on to oppose transgenderism or even transhumanism (Mary Harrington has done great work on the connection between those.)
If you answer that question "yes", you must accept that you are granting conservatives ground to stand on in defense of traditional gender roles and the innate dignity of all humans.
There is no "maybe". The gender ideologues and postmodernists have realized what the rest of us struggle to accept: once you acknowledge any physical differences between men and women, you allow for other differences as well. Once you allow "natural law" into the room, arguments about the proper roles for men and women are inevitable. It is this which many liberals and progressives are loathe to do. Hence the postmodernist cry of our time: "trans women are women". Self-evidently nonsensical and yet delivered with a straight face from the highest centers of power.
That's our real problem. It's metaphysical. It's theological. And arguing about the age of consent isn't going to solve it.
I don’t disagree at all with what you’re saying, but am interested in finding an actionable way to protect vulnerable young adults now whose indoctrination into the gender cult is ripping them from their families and irreparably harming them with irreversible “treatments.”
I agree Merrie, and I certainly applaud any attempts to limit teen "transition". It is child abuse, made ever more horrific by the wholesale embrace (in the name of safety and liberation and freedom of course) by our entire ruling class. But I put "transition" in quotes there because the entire idea of "becoming the opposite sex" is absurd at absolutely any age.
I only brought it up because the author is so focused on "education of adults" being the key. She accepts the underlying premise of absolute individual autonomy, but wants to persuade people not to mutilate their own bodies. While noble, this misses the larger point that "maximal individual autonomy" conflicts fundamentally with any type of social standard. When such standards (such as... "penises should be kept out of women's locker rooms" or "transvestites and kids don't mix") run up against someone who wants to use their personal autonomy to violate the standard, what wins? If you've enshrined "maximal individual autonomy" as your highest social good, the answer is that the standard must always fall to the liberty of the transgressor. Hence my point that such a society ends up (and likely ends) with the majority of normies held hostage by the autonomy demands of the most demented.
I respect that PITT is unified around only around the issue of teens, but if we fail to answer the larger questions of "what is man" and "what is woman" correctly, we'll always be playing whack-a-mole on the question of teens.
Again, I understand what you’re saying and I do agree. Just trying to find a way to save my very own daughter caught in this before she reaches a point of no (or alt least very difficult) return. Appreciate your response!
Honestly, the best way is to not focus on "vulnerable young adults" at all, but to roll back the changes over the last few years that dragged transgenderism *in general* into the middle of the Overton Window. Push it back outside the Overton Window where it belongs, and let men be men and women be women once again.
I wonder if WPATH went back to its ORIGINAL standards of care, 3-5 years of psychological assessment prior to any medical intervention, would we see less harm done to these young people? This is the way it used to be. They would have to undergo rigorous assessment during years of crucial brain developing age, mandated by insurance companies. If they come out with ZERO mental comorbidities AND they were deemed sound adult thinkers simply suffering from gender incongruity, let them proceed.
My guess is a very small percentage would be deemed sound minded. A great many would have floated off to the next trend. Or perhaps they actually mature in these 3 years of waiting and discover their thinking minds. I have pondered this throughout my gender journey with my child. This seems like a safe and simple solution. It would even benefit the Drs of these surgeries against future lawsuits.
I know, I know, common sense is antiquated and taken for granted these days. It's terribly sad.
I respect this view, Bob and understand why it's so tempting. This is a variant of the argument I hear frequently: "can't we just go back to the nice, friendly, pro-gay, color-blind, early 2000's liberalism?" It won't work.
First of all, for conservatives, the early 2000's liberalism was hardly friendly. I got called a hater and a racist and a bigot and a Nazi dozens of times in the 90's.
Secondly, the entire issue of transgenderism is connected to the larger questions of whether men and women are interchangeable, and we started litigating that question in the 1960's, not in the 2000's.
The movement of transgenderism into the Overton window didn't happen spontaneously. It is a logical extension of the philosophy of the Sexual Revolution, maybe even of J.S. Mill's Harm Principle (Patrick Deneen believes this and I suspect he might be right.) You won't move the Overton window back without addressing the differences between men and women, specifically whether there are any and why.
Trans is a techno-medical movement that refuses the fact that individuals are embodied.
Linking this to feminism and women's rights (the feint: oh, we need to emphasize how men & women are different & those differences are cast in stone) is dishonest and dangerous to all women. It is a step in the direction of undermining all the rights and independence women have won since the late 19th C.
It is much more straightforward & honest to simply say: cutting off healthy body parts & organs is unhealthy. Turning oneself into a life-long medical patient who can't function without heavy doses of hormones is unwise. Insurance and public funds used to finance these treatments are an unethical use of limited medical capacity
I hope you're right. I really do. But I teach philosophy and political science, and I'm fairly sure about this.
You say trans "refuses the fact that individuals are embodied". That's really just another way of restating my point, the operative question is: "what is man?" To accept the embodiment of human beings means accepting that there are constraints on human beings, which sounds an awful lot like "natural law" to me. It is unchosen constraints that the educated, industrialized, Western mind rejects.
A more interesting question to me is: if you had to choose between accepting transgenderism and transhumanism as a positive good (and the divorce of humans from their bodies which that implies) vs. accepting a rollback of many of the post-Sexual Revolution philosophies regarding sexual differences or the lack thereof... what would you choose? I know you'd like a third option, but truthfully, I do believe the choice we all face is pretty binary.
Perhaps there's a way to split this baby that I'm not seeing though. I would love to be wrong on this point.
You write: "You say trans "refuses the fact that individuals are embodied". That's really just another way of restating my point, the operative question is: "what is man?" To accept the embodiment of human beings means accepting that there are constraints on human beings, which sounds an awful lot like "natural law" to me."
These sentences join together things in a way I would reject. You add things up to formulate a false either/or scenario. I do not believe any such choice is required.
1)To state that we are all embodied does not imply any essential identity. As I understand embodiment, we are mind-body emergent beings without an intangible essence, but rather with various abilities and potentials. That doesn't mean that sexual dimorphism does not exist, but neither does it tie the individual who remains an emergent being with vast potential.
2) To value our embodied condition means that we care for our bodies and do our best to maintain our physical and mental health. Part of maintaining that health is to accept one's body. It is an absurdity, for example, to consider that one might be "born in the wrong body". That is an impossibility & should never be taught to children, who are magical thinkers and can take such suggestions literally. Neither should such an absurdity or delusion be accepted by doctors or psychologists (as is the current norm under 'affirmative care). Coddling the delusions of individuals & encouraging radical medical treatments based on these delusions is medical malpractice.
3) accepting one's body is not so much accepting a constraint as accepting a material vehicle for being in the world. Our body enables. Even disabled bodies enable one's existence. We cannot exist without them. This is biological truth, not what I would call natural law.
4) the leap to natural law is huge & unwarranted. Law is a human construct, not a natural phenomenon. Rather what we have is our evolved life form that emerges in and through our living bodies.
5) this leaves so-called transgenderism as merely an extreme set of treatments designed to change appearances, like other forms of plastic surgery or body manipulation/sculpting. Foisting such experimental and complicated and damaging procedures on children is child abuse (IMHO). Adults past 24 years old might continue to choose such procedures, but should be thoroughly apprised of all known risks & that unknown risks still exist & that long-term medical complications are not understood by the medical professionals who sell the procedures.
Oh, I agree entirely. I've said various times on the record that transgenderism exists as a political shield to Obergefell v. Hodges, just as abortion is to the Sexual Revolution: keep opponents off-balance and focused on the shield so that they won't have the time or mental energy to focus on the thing it's protecting. (This is why transgenderism abruptly went from a minor fringe issue that barely anyone had ever heard of to the next big Dogma Everyone Must Compulsorily Pledge Unthinking Support For approximately 5 minutes after the Obergefell verdict was handed down.)
Rolling this back won't be enough — not even close! — but it's a very good place to start, an essential one even, I'd argue.
Thank you for the list. Those of us who work on getting legislation passed to protect minors from medical intervention understand that the prohibitions only buy time for many confused children. Without being able to stop the pervasive promotion of - in some states the demand for - gender affirmation, minors will be on track and prepped for drugs and surgeries as soon as they reach 18. I assure you major efforts continue to educate everyone we can about the lies of "transgender."
I would also like to add that parents should not affirm their child's confusion at any age. You can affirm their sex in gentle redirecting ways while allowing for individual interests without denying or ignoring their biological sex. Start telling them early that boys cannot be girls and girls cannot be boys. That truth needs to be second nature to them - and to us.
One other point I would like to add is that except for a minute few people, every cell with a nucleus in our body is stamped XX or XY and remain XX or XY until we die and affect much more than sex organs. Males and females respond differently to diseases, medicines, and stimulus. Drugs and surgeries, deception, wishing, believing in a non-binary, other-sex existence does not change that.
Yeah, who knew 10 years ago that you had to tell your kids that boys cannot be girls and girls cannot be boys? Insanity. And, it is insanity taught in school.
Exactly! And Scotland (for some unknown reason, to me) seems to fully embrace this ideology and is fighting tooth and nail to get it legally embedded into the fabtic of Scottish society via the Gender Recognition Act. Affecting what you can tell your children and what they can in turn tell others because expressing truth, biological and objective reality will become unlawful because that Act is affirming that men can legally become women and women can legally become men and to challenge that will be seen as discrimination or a hate crime. Both unlawful. And if we take it to Canadian and US 'extremes', you can be seen as an unfit parent to teach your kids anything outside what the law states.
The Gender Recognition Act is an example of how the law is being weaponised to uphold an ideology and to keep people in check. Get with the programme or suffer the legal consequences.
Like, who knew this would be a necessary part of parenting?
Somehow, we have to throw the Overton Window far back the other direction, and not just be fighting to say that 18.5 years old is still not a good age for butchery when the otherwise healthy patient does not fathom the implications - because they are propagandized/have no life experience, etc. We need some criminal trials and serious consequences... And, we have to get this cult ideology out of the schools.
Doctors shouldn’t be allowed to give unnecessary treatments. It’s just like thinking you need to have a healthy limb removed, the doctor should be treating the mental condition not affirming the patient’s delusions,
Bam. Thank you. This says everything.
Outstanding piece! I have a suggestion concerning the fifth point, which is:
"5) that at least some mature adults who chose to transition eventually realized this was not necessary and, perhaps, they could have alleviated their mental suffering in less physically invasive, mentally taxing ways, and, for the youth transitioning today, the rate of regret is as of yet unknown, but appears to be growing by leaps and bounds;"
When I listened to Episode 140 of the "Gender: A Wider Lens" podcast in which the hosts interviewed detransitioner Chloe Cole on stage at Genspect's recent Denver conference, I was shocked to learn that Ms. Cole had been put on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and had her breasts removed without ever having been told by her health-care professionals that there was a type of person known as a "detransitioner." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uxqeEDrZgY
If that's correct, it means that the informed consent documents her licensed providers gave her were gravely deficient. To give informed consent to a treatment or procedure, a patient needs to understand the known consequences. What could be more relevant to a would-be transitioner than: 1) some people regret their decisions so much that they decide to undo the medical treatments they underwent, at least to the extent such a thing is possible; 2) those people are called detransitioners?
Sure, someone who is motivated enough to initiate medical treatment for, say, gender dysphoria, might not be receptive to hearing about detransitioners then, but that does not give a physician the right to keep the patient entirely in the dark on the subject before prescribing pills or wielding the scalpel.
Knowledge is power, and by failing to disclose detransition and detransitioners in their informed consent documents health care professionals are disempowering their patients. It is the sort of omission that effectively turns therapists and physicians who should be objective practitioners of a science-informed discipline into trans activists.
Well written and spot on. Thanks!
OMG everything you write is absolutely 100% correct, true, real, rational and logical, all human knowledge and thought which seems to have been abandoned by this odd, disquieting haze that has descended over a portion of the population like the plot of a sci-fi/horror movie. It is so obvious to some of us but there are so many people who are oblivious and indoctrinated by this insidious wave of utter blindness to a future full of medically altered human wrecks! I always thought there were ignorant people in the world and the terms dumb, stupid and idiotic obviously exist for a reason (in all languages too) but how did this become something that our youth have embraced and adults have pushed? How did stupidity become acceptable and even applauded? Sorry to rant but let’s keep calling this ridiculousness out! I’m so relieved that we have been forced out of our comfort zones enough to end this destructive narrative. Thank you.
I wish this could be posted in BIG letters on billboards across the country "It is a FACT that nobody is actually born in the "wrong body," which is a non-sensical notion with no scientific basis and a complete lack of logic, and "gender dysphoria" is, in fact, a mental disorder."
Yes!
How about we get Medicare/Medicaid to STOP using TAX $$$ to
Fund these treatments.
Or pay for detransitioning.
Much needed reminder that while protecting minors is essential, the idea of social and medical “transitioning” are not harmless procedures at any age.
You are so right.
“Society Must Also Become Aware of the Truth about Transition!”
“Amen” to that. I expect that most people would be – or should be – absolutely horrified if they really knew and understood that “gender affirming care” often meant the butchering of dysphoric and autistic children – basically castrating them, turning them into sexless eunuchs.
Far too many people seem to “think” that “sex changes” are actually possible, probably because they subscribe to the Kindergarten Cop definitions for the sexes, i.e., boys have penises and girls have vaginas. “Change your genitalia, change your sex! Act now! Offer ends soon!” 🙄 Bloody criminal that anyone, much less “doctors” should be giving any credence or currency to that “idea”.
And even some on “our side” do so, by intent or inadvertently. For example see Christopher Rufo’s article, and our subsequent conversation:
CR: “It's not a perfect term, but ‘child sex-change procedure’ is immediately understandable to the public and much more accurate regarding its intention—which, yes, is impossible—than ‘gender-affirming care,’ the new euphemism they're pushing.
https://christopherrufo.com/p/sex-change-procedures-at-texas-childrens/comment/16193243
If “sex-change procedure” is “understandable to the public” – particularly as something within the realm of possibility – then our educational system is a very large part of the problem. As is Rufo for pandering to egregious scientific illiteracy.
Call a spade an effen shovel there Christopher.
But quite agree with your differentiation between “various feminine or masculine characteristics” – basically our sexually dimorphic personalities, our “genders” – and “whether an individual is male or female” – our sexes. Major part of the whole problem is the insistence by far too many that “sex” and “gender” are synonymous; fairly “nice” if imperfect exposition on that theme here:
https://bprice.substack.com/p/if-sex-and-gender-are-different-things
Though, somewhat sadly, words like “man” and “woman” now have some currency both as sexes – i.e., “adult human males/females” – and as genders – i.e., “anyone who has any sort of a passing resemblance to adult human males/females”. See Merriam-Webster’s Usage Note:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender#usage-1
No wonder pretty much everyone is “riding madly off in all directions”.
I agree with you for the most part, Steersman, except that I am not into describing a person's personality in terms of "having a gender". You pretty much have to be someone who is knee deep in all of this for that not to confuse/muddy matters. And, if my daughter enjoyed playing with all manner of toys ("boys" and "girls") but played with them in a gentle manner, to what "gender" do we "assign" her? I get it that one might be tempted to use "gender" in a fancy/university way but alot of folks have historically used it to avoid saying "sex" - like a Victorian saying "limb" instead of "arm" or "leg". Your average person is still gonna say "gender" interchangeably with "sex" sometimes. I basically don't use the word. To me a guy in a dress is just a guy in a dress, not someone displaying "gender".
I take your point about the term "sex change". It isn't possible. The best that could be said about it is that it is one step better/away from "gender affirmation medicine" which is truly a medical scandal. I agree with you that the "bikini" view of sex is nonsense. Every bit of us is sexed from birth and cannot be changed. Yeah, even our dictionaries are corrupted with this. But, things can change again and must. I think all of DIE/Woke has to go. - LM
A belated "thank you" for your comment there "LM". 🙂 Emphasizes a couple of useful points.
Particularly agree with your "average person is gonna say 'gender' interchangeably with 'sex'". But that's part of the problem -- many people using the same words in contradictory ways:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion
The whole concept of "gender" is something of a "lab leak" phenomenon 😉🙂, a dog's breakfast, a Frankensteinian monster that's run amok, but there IS some merit in the idea. And it's not really possible to turn the transloonie tide -- so to speak -- until we get down to brass tacks, to discussing the uses and misuses of the terminology. Apropos of which, you might take a gander at a recent post -- not paywalled or hidden -- over at Reality's Last Stand on the recent conference put on by Genspect:
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-end-of-wpath-introducing-the
Of particular note is a downloadable PDF of Genspect's "mission statement", their "Gender Framework" to replace WPATH's ideological claptrap. Couple of salient quotes therefrom:
Genspect: "1.1.3 ‘Gender’ is a spectrum:
Few topics have generated as much confusion in recent years as the distinction between the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender.’ While many people use these terms interchangeably, the field of gender studies differentiates between them. Here, ‘gender’ describes the set of expected social roles, behaviors, and expressions traditionally linked to one's sex. ....
Within the medical field, what is often termed as a person’s ‘gender’ can be viewed as a rough classification based on their self-assessment of how closely their personality, preferences, and behavioral traits align with conventional definitions of masculinity and femininity."
Quite a lengthy document which I've only skimmed so far, but I think they "affirm" that "gender" isn't at all a chimera, that it has some use in some important discussions. Though I may still have a bone or two to pick with them on their definitions for the sexes which look no better than folk-biology.
But to answer your hypothetical question about your daughter "playing with all manner of toys". Part of the problem there is that many people don't have a good handle on some basic principles, mostly of statistics. Which is maybe not surprising given that most people don't need them in their day to day lives, and given that many so-called biologists, and even some lawyers and feminists (*cough Helen Dale & Louise Perry *cough), have made a dog's breakfast out of the concept. See my "Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics" for details:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/lies-damned-lies-and-statistics
But another part of the problem there is that many people don't understand that people can be somewhat masculine on some traits, somewhat feminine on others, and "genderless" on still others.
Part and parcel of the idea of a multidimensional gender spectrum. See my Welcome post, particularly the section on "Rationalized Gender" for details:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/i/64264079/rationalized-gender
But I assume your "bikini view of sex" is the Kindergarten Cop versions? If so, "nonsense" indeed. Though "sexed from birth" depends on how you define "male" and "female" which is very much of an open question.
But quite agree on "all of DIE/Woke has to go." 🙂
"Though "sexed from birth" depends on how you define "male" and "female" which is very much of an open question." I strongly disagree with this. Sex is an inescapable binary biological fact - male and female - with some few people suffering a genetic defect within those two baskets.
Also, though some like to discuss a concept of "gender" as separate from sex it is pretty much academic and I find "personality" much more real.
I will say that Marxist Queer Theory and the Concept of "Gender Identity" are a University Lab Leak.
It is a little simplistic to say that Dr. John Money "coined" the term Gender Identity but it is not too far off. Helen Joyce has a little more history in her book "Trans". I do think we are better off with Sex (binary) and Personality (as varied as there are people) and throwing "gender" on the junk heap.
"John Money: The Pro-Pedophile Pervert Who Invented “Gender”"
https://reduxx.info/john-money-the-pervert-who-invented-gender/
Love this response! Spot on and to the point. That’s what’s lacking now. Geez why do people have to complicate simple, easy concepts with “University Lab Leak” speak.( I like that term and I’ll be using it! ) I used to employ the rule “If you can’t win the argument bamboozle them with bullshit.” This applies in so many instances now just listen to anything Neill Degrassi-Tyson the “astrophysicist” has to espouse on the transgender “issue”. Pure BS.
Huh, N D-T got really agitated, had a melt-down. Maybe he is a secret cross dresser Auto-gyno? This used to be considered a paraphilia. But, whatever. People have those (different from being homosexual) and we do not need to redefine what male and female are to accommodate them.
What is "an inescapable binary biological fact" is that those organisms -- of all anisogamous species including the human one -- which have functional gonads -- of either of two types -- can reproduce and that those who don't can't. What we DEFINE "male" and "female" as is very much a matter of choice, of social construction.
You might actually try reading what the standard biological definitions for the sexes actually say. And not what you -- and too many others -- want them to say:
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces [present tense indefinite] the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
"Gamete competition, gamete limitation, and the evolution of the two sexes" https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990 (see the Glossary)
https://web.archive.org/web/20181020204521/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/female
https://web.archive.org/web/20190608135422/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/male
https://twitter.com/pwkilleen/status/1039879009407037441 (Oxford Dictionary of Biology)
In which case we say that to have a sex is to have functional gonads of either of two types, those with neither being sexless.
And "gender separate from sex" is hardly "academic" when the conflation of reproductive abilities and personalities -- which you're contributing to -- is what is corrupting much of biology, education, and government. But sure, "personality" is "real". Though, as I've indicated, that is more or less what Genspect DEFINES "gender" as. So you're basically saying that "gender" is real.
While the whole concept of "gender" is something of a dog's breakfast, it has a great deal of value in its recognition that there ARE substantial differences, on average, between the personalities of men and women. You might actually try reading the 4th Wave Now article that I've linked here several times now:
https://4thwavenow.com/2019/08/19/no-child-is-born-in-the-wrong-body-and-other-thoughts-on-the-concept-of-gender-identity/
That’s why the relabeled it to Gender Affirmation... all PR 🤥🤯👿
I have read so many of these PITT posts and really appreciate the people who write here to share stories, thoughts, and feelings. You say exactly how I feel and its so nicely written. This post is inspiring me to copy and post it to my FB page. I am becoming braver about sharing and posting because unfortunately i can relate to so many if not all of these posts. Thank you so much for writing it. I hope to one day send in my thoughts i guess i just keep holding out in hopes to be able to send a story of dissistance ❤️
We can never quite stamp out the cult of transition in America, because America. Adults are allowed to join any cult they want, including Skoptic cults. However, the reason we don't see more Jonestowns and Heaven's Gates is that those cults raised awareness of the problem. Mass consciousness of this problem witll not eliminate it, but it can attenuate the harm.
Well said Matt Osbourne!👏🏼
You might want to consider taking some responsibility for that state of affairs by your refusal to even think there's any merit at all in the concepts of gender and gender identity:
https://bprice.substack.com/p/if-sex-and-gender-are-different-things
And just because it’s a NEWER theory doesn’t mean it’s correct.
You've admitted yourself that there are feminine and masculine personality traits. THAT is what the "theory" MEANS by "gender". You're basically saying that the theory is "correct".
Steersman just stop! Your word salad is laboured.
Devils in the details. If you don't want to grapple with them then you don't have much of a leg to stand on when they come around to bite you in the arse.
You too might want to take a close look at the Reality's Last Stand post from Genspect and their "mission statement" (all 330 pages):
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-end-of-wpath-introducing-the
Of particular note is a downloadable PDF of Genspect's "mission statement", their "Gender Framework" to replace WPATH's ideological claptrap. Couple of salient quotes therefrom:
Genspect: "1.1.3 ‘Gender’ is a spectrum:
Few topics have generated as much confusion in recent years as the distinction between the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender.’ While many people use these terms interchangeably, the field of gender studies differentiates between them. Here, ‘gender’ describes the set of expected social roles, behaviors, and expressions traditionally linked to one's sex. ....
Within the medical field, what is often termed as a person’s ‘gender’ can be viewed as a rough classification based on their self-assessment of how closely their personality, preferences, and behavioral traits align with conventional definitions of masculinity and femininity."
How am I personally responsible for the harms of pediatric sex trait modification? And how is that related to my personal metaphysics? Explain using facts. I do not have time for a screed. Answer in a few sentences or GTFO.
Teaching KIDS that Drs guess their gender at birth has NO biological science. It’s all psychobabble & I have a psych degree. I studied gender sciences. Go back & read the older Drs who were “cancelled”.
Do you know the Dr who created theory was a pedophile who’s first Patient committed suicide 😐.
Suicide rates post transition are astronomical.. it does NOT fix the underlying issues in 99% of people
Not directly but indirectly. You insist on seeing and characterizing gender/gender-identity as JUST some sort of a religion. And there's SOME merit in doing so -- Iranian-Canadian physician & anthropologist Sahar Sadjadi characterizes gender identity as a "merging of science, magic, and religion":
https://journal.culanth.org/index.php/ca/article/view/3728/430
But there is STILL some science there which you apparently refuse to even consider. The OP quite reasonably talks about "various feminine or masculine characteristics” – basically our sexually dimorphic personalities, our “genders”. You might want to try reading the article a bit more closely for elaborations on that theme. And that "bprice.substack" article I'd linked above. And even Wright's co-authored piece which emphasizes those feminine and masculine characteristics:
https://4thwavenow.com/2019/08/19/no-child-is-born-in-the-wrong-body-and-other-thoughts-on-the-concept-of-gender-identity/
Pots and kettles. If all of my comment here isn't too many sentences for you ...
Steersman, this is woo. Wright and Caignan and Heying and a strong cast of very knowledgeable people just spent a weekend explaining to me and many parents of this Substack why bimodal distribution of "gendered" behaviors does not prove the existence of gender angels at all. You cannot make me join your weird cult or use magic pronouns or respect your gender authoritah. You cannot, because America. It is not going to happen.
Not sure what conference you went to, but you might actually try reading -- if there aren't too many sentences there for you ... -- a guest post on Reality's Last Stand by a Genspect factotum:
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/the-end-of-wpath-introducing-the
Of particular note is a downloadable PDF of Genspect's "mission statement", their "Gender Framework" to replace WPATH's ideological claptrap. Couple of salient quotes therefrom:
Genspect: "1.1.3 ‘Gender’ is a spectrum:
Few topics have generated as much confusion in recent years as the distinction between the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender.’ While many people use these terms interchangeably, the field of gender studies differentiates between them. Here, ‘gender’ describes the set of expected social roles, behaviors, and expressions traditionally linked to one's sex. ....
Within the medical field, what is often termed as a person’s ‘gender’ can be viewed as a rough classification based on their self-assessment of how closely their personality, preferences, and behavioral traits align with conventional definitions of masculinity and femininity."
Quite a lengthy document which I've only skimmed so far, but I think they "affirm" that "gender" isn't at all a chimera, that it has some use in some important discussions. Though I may still have a bone or two to pick with them on their definitions for the sexes which look no better than folk-biology.
Steers. You are embarrassing yourself. You don't realize this because you have not tried it in a public debate setting. The magic only works in Second Life. Grow up.
Where the fuck did I say ANYTHING about "gendered angels"? You're trying to thrash the hell out of strawmen.
Many people DEFINE those masculine and feminine personalities AS genders. They assert that, in their lexicons, "masculine" and "feminine" are two halves of a gender spectrum -- like the reddish and bluish halves of the colour spectrum: millions of colours, of "genders" in each half. "genders" are sexually dimorphic personalities & behaviours.
You seriously think that the late great Justice Anton Scalia was peddling "gender angels"?
Scalia: “The word 'gender' has acquired the new and useful connotation of cultural or attitudinal characteristics (as opposed to physical characteristics) distinctive to the sexes. That is to say, gender is to sex as feminine is to female and masculine is to male.”
https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep511/usrep511127/usrep511127.pdf
There IS a difference between sex -- reproductive abilities -- and gender -- psychology.
Did you bother to even open the 4th Wave Now article? You have any clue at all as to what the graph therein actually means? It's a clear indication of substantial differences -- on average -- in the behaviours of men and women.
You're so fixated on your own narrow-minded view that you can't even think there's another way of looking at the issue.
Steers I spent the weekend in the room with both authors of that piece you keep waving at me as they explained why "two halves of a gender spectrum" is nonsense. Scalia noting the correspondences of words is not proof that "gender identity" exists outside of someone's head. There is no objective measure of "gender identity" that is not a performative sexist stereotype or medicalized trope.
It is telling that you project "fixation" on me. You constantly flog this ridiculous Gish gallop of gibberish, even pay subscriptions, in order to "educate" us all on the immaterial reality of "gender identity." Most people are too polite to tell you that you are a kook. I am not, and this is what you call "narrow-minded." I either say you are wrong (because you are wrong) or I ignore you. No amount of money or name-calling will alter this dynamic. What is the definition of insanity again?
I completely agree!! My daughter was already 18 when she “decided” she was trans and is now 20. Under 0 circumstances is she able to make a decision like that. Most of these kids, as we know, have underlying/comorbid conditions like ASD and depression. They need several years of therapy before medical transition is even considered. If the world of psychology says it takes upwards of a year to diagnose bipolar or borderline then surely it would take or should take it at least that long.
And that, I think, hits it right on the head. If we are going for incremental change here (which is usually the most or only realistic plan in politics and society) it would make so much more sense to lobby for a standard of care that requires a certain amount of psychotherapy as well as stability and reasonable functioning of any and all comorbid mental disorders prior to evaluating anyone for these treatments, rather than to place an arbitrary age limit above which it is basically surgery on demand.
And, this is obviously conjecture but had your-or any-child decided they were trans at 17 years and 8 months, the four month delay is highly unlikely to deter them much and actually would seem just as likely if not moreso to simply add fuel to their fire and increase the urgency of their desire to get that first prescription at 1201am on their 18th birthdays.
"Medical transition" is mutilation.This destructive fantasy should never be "considered" for anyone at any age. It's always heinous malpractice.
I’m completely agree!!
Just had a conversation with me 18 year old senior. He would like to take a gap year before college to medically transition and magically metamorphosize into a girl. I thought we were making some progress. I thought I might be seeing signs of desistance I feel so depleted.
It’s gut-wrenching isn’t it! Keep your chin up and look after yourself and give yourself credit for being a person of conviction and a loving parent.
I pray for your family he doesn't follow through. I feel like even if they at least hear a few things on the side effects it will create enough doubt to hold off long enough for him to wake. You know you need to keep loving him to pieces and a little truth bomb here and there shouldnt hurt either. You will get through this! Make sure you take time for yourself. We are so depleted from this fight ❤️
Don’t give up hope. My son as a senior said the same thing after I thought he was desisting. He moved out but he has not medicalized. He’s been living on his own for over a year. He even cut his hair short. He is not in contact with us but maybe it’s helping him. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because he can that he doesn’t.
Thank you. I will not give up. My husband and I will continue to love and be there for him. Always.
I am sorry 😞 Drs are truly evil now
I am so sorry!!
I’m so sorry
The operative point isn't age of consent or even "consent" at all. If the only restriction you can allow on human behavior is consent, the mass of normal people will live in a society held hostage by the weirdos. Arguably, we already do.
The question isn't, "What age should people be allowed to consent to puberty blockers?" The question is, "Are men and women fundamentally different?" This question touches are far more than trans. It touches on gender roles, gay rights, and many other liberal/conservative flashpoints. But that is the proper question.
If you answer that question "no", you will have no ground to stand on to oppose transgenderism or even transhumanism (Mary Harrington has done great work on the connection between those.)
If you answer that question "yes", you must accept that you are granting conservatives ground to stand on in defense of traditional gender roles and the innate dignity of all humans.
There is no "maybe". The gender ideologues and postmodernists have realized what the rest of us struggle to accept: once you acknowledge any physical differences between men and women, you allow for other differences as well. Once you allow "natural law" into the room, arguments about the proper roles for men and women are inevitable. It is this which many liberals and progressives are loathe to do. Hence the postmodernist cry of our time: "trans women are women". Self-evidently nonsensical and yet delivered with a straight face from the highest centers of power.
That's our real problem. It's metaphysical. It's theological. And arguing about the age of consent isn't going to solve it.
Excellent comment.
I don’t disagree at all with what you’re saying, but am interested in finding an actionable way to protect vulnerable young adults now whose indoctrination into the gender cult is ripping them from their families and irreparably harming them with irreversible “treatments.”
I agree Merrie, and I certainly applaud any attempts to limit teen "transition". It is child abuse, made ever more horrific by the wholesale embrace (in the name of safety and liberation and freedom of course) by our entire ruling class. But I put "transition" in quotes there because the entire idea of "becoming the opposite sex" is absurd at absolutely any age.
I only brought it up because the author is so focused on "education of adults" being the key. She accepts the underlying premise of absolute individual autonomy, but wants to persuade people not to mutilate their own bodies. While noble, this misses the larger point that "maximal individual autonomy" conflicts fundamentally with any type of social standard. When such standards (such as... "penises should be kept out of women's locker rooms" or "transvestites and kids don't mix") run up against someone who wants to use their personal autonomy to violate the standard, what wins? If you've enshrined "maximal individual autonomy" as your highest social good, the answer is that the standard must always fall to the liberty of the transgressor. Hence my point that such a society ends up (and likely ends) with the majority of normies held hostage by the autonomy demands of the most demented.
I respect that PITT is unified around only around the issue of teens, but if we fail to answer the larger questions of "what is man" and "what is woman" correctly, we'll always be playing whack-a-mole on the question of teens.
Again, I understand what you’re saying and I do agree. Just trying to find a way to save my very own daughter caught in this before she reaches a point of no (or alt least very difficult) return. Appreciate your response!
Honestly, the best way is to not focus on "vulnerable young adults" at all, but to roll back the changes over the last few years that dragged transgenderism *in general* into the middle of the Overton Window. Push it back outside the Overton Window where it belongs, and let men be men and women be women once again.
I wonder if WPATH went back to its ORIGINAL standards of care, 3-5 years of psychological assessment prior to any medical intervention, would we see less harm done to these young people? This is the way it used to be. They would have to undergo rigorous assessment during years of crucial brain developing age, mandated by insurance companies. If they come out with ZERO mental comorbidities AND they were deemed sound adult thinkers simply suffering from gender incongruity, let them proceed.
My guess is a very small percentage would be deemed sound minded. A great many would have floated off to the next trend. Or perhaps they actually mature in these 3 years of waiting and discover their thinking minds. I have pondered this throughout my gender journey with my child. This seems like a safe and simple solution. It would even benefit the Drs of these surgeries against future lawsuits.
I know, I know, common sense is antiquated and taken for granted these days. It's terribly sad.
I respect this view, Bob and understand why it's so tempting. This is a variant of the argument I hear frequently: "can't we just go back to the nice, friendly, pro-gay, color-blind, early 2000's liberalism?" It won't work.
First of all, for conservatives, the early 2000's liberalism was hardly friendly. I got called a hater and a racist and a bigot and a Nazi dozens of times in the 90's.
Secondly, the entire issue of transgenderism is connected to the larger questions of whether men and women are interchangeable, and we started litigating that question in the 1960's, not in the 2000's.
The movement of transgenderism into the Overton window didn't happen spontaneously. It is a logical extension of the philosophy of the Sexual Revolution, maybe even of J.S. Mill's Harm Principle (Patrick Deneen believes this and I suspect he might be right.) You won't move the Overton window back without addressing the differences between men and women, specifically whether there are any and why.
I disagree with your logic.
Trans is a techno-medical movement that refuses the fact that individuals are embodied.
Linking this to feminism and women's rights (the feint: oh, we need to emphasize how men & women are different & those differences are cast in stone) is dishonest and dangerous to all women. It is a step in the direction of undermining all the rights and independence women have won since the late 19th C.
It is much more straightforward & honest to simply say: cutting off healthy body parts & organs is unhealthy. Turning oneself into a life-long medical patient who can't function without heavy doses of hormones is unwise. Insurance and public funds used to finance these treatments are an unethical use of limited medical capacity
I hope you're right. I really do. But I teach philosophy and political science, and I'm fairly sure about this.
You say trans "refuses the fact that individuals are embodied". That's really just another way of restating my point, the operative question is: "what is man?" To accept the embodiment of human beings means accepting that there are constraints on human beings, which sounds an awful lot like "natural law" to me. It is unchosen constraints that the educated, industrialized, Western mind rejects.
A more interesting question to me is: if you had to choose between accepting transgenderism and transhumanism as a positive good (and the divorce of humans from their bodies which that implies) vs. accepting a rollback of many of the post-Sexual Revolution philosophies regarding sexual differences or the lack thereof... what would you choose? I know you'd like a third option, but truthfully, I do believe the choice we all face is pretty binary.
Perhaps there's a way to split this baby that I'm not seeing though. I would love to be wrong on this point.
You write: "You say trans "refuses the fact that individuals are embodied". That's really just another way of restating my point, the operative question is: "what is man?" To accept the embodiment of human beings means accepting that there are constraints on human beings, which sounds an awful lot like "natural law" to me."
These sentences join together things in a way I would reject. You add things up to formulate a false either/or scenario. I do not believe any such choice is required.
1)To state that we are all embodied does not imply any essential identity. As I understand embodiment, we are mind-body emergent beings without an intangible essence, but rather with various abilities and potentials. That doesn't mean that sexual dimorphism does not exist, but neither does it tie the individual who remains an emergent being with vast potential.
2) To value our embodied condition means that we care for our bodies and do our best to maintain our physical and mental health. Part of maintaining that health is to accept one's body. It is an absurdity, for example, to consider that one might be "born in the wrong body". That is an impossibility & should never be taught to children, who are magical thinkers and can take such suggestions literally. Neither should such an absurdity or delusion be accepted by doctors or psychologists (as is the current norm under 'affirmative care). Coddling the delusions of individuals & encouraging radical medical treatments based on these delusions is medical malpractice.
3) accepting one's body is not so much accepting a constraint as accepting a material vehicle for being in the world. Our body enables. Even disabled bodies enable one's existence. We cannot exist without them. This is biological truth, not what I would call natural law.
4) the leap to natural law is huge & unwarranted. Law is a human construct, not a natural phenomenon. Rather what we have is our evolved life form that emerges in and through our living bodies.
5) this leaves so-called transgenderism as merely an extreme set of treatments designed to change appearances, like other forms of plastic surgery or body manipulation/sculpting. Foisting such experimental and complicated and damaging procedures on children is child abuse (IMHO). Adults past 24 years old might continue to choose such procedures, but should be thoroughly apprised of all known risks & that unknown risks still exist & that long-term medical complications are not understood by the medical professionals who sell the procedures.
Oh, I agree entirely. I've said various times on the record that transgenderism exists as a political shield to Obergefell v. Hodges, just as abortion is to the Sexual Revolution: keep opponents off-balance and focused on the shield so that they won't have the time or mental energy to focus on the thing it's protecting. (This is why transgenderism abruptly went from a minor fringe issue that barely anyone had ever heard of to the next big Dogma Everyone Must Compulsorily Pledge Unthinking Support For approximately 5 minutes after the Obergefell verdict was handed down.)
Rolling this back won't be enough — not even close! — but it's a very good place to start, an essential one even, I'd argue.
Thank you for the list. Those of us who work on getting legislation passed to protect minors from medical intervention understand that the prohibitions only buy time for many confused children. Without being able to stop the pervasive promotion of - in some states the demand for - gender affirmation, minors will be on track and prepped for drugs and surgeries as soon as they reach 18. I assure you major efforts continue to educate everyone we can about the lies of "transgender."
I would also like to add that parents should not affirm their child's confusion at any age. You can affirm their sex in gentle redirecting ways while allowing for individual interests without denying or ignoring their biological sex. Start telling them early that boys cannot be girls and girls cannot be boys. That truth needs to be second nature to them - and to us.
One other point I would like to add is that except for a minute few people, every cell with a nucleus in our body is stamped XX or XY and remain XX or XY until we die and affect much more than sex organs. Males and females respond differently to diseases, medicines, and stimulus. Drugs and surgeries, deception, wishing, believing in a non-binary, other-sex existence does not change that.
Yeah, who knew 10 years ago that you had to tell your kids that boys cannot be girls and girls cannot be boys? Insanity. And, it is insanity taught in school.
Exactly! And Scotland (for some unknown reason, to me) seems to fully embrace this ideology and is fighting tooth and nail to get it legally embedded into the fabtic of Scottish society via the Gender Recognition Act. Affecting what you can tell your children and what they can in turn tell others because expressing truth, biological and objective reality will become unlawful because that Act is affirming that men can legally become women and women can legally become men and to challenge that will be seen as discrimination or a hate crime. Both unlawful. And if we take it to Canadian and US 'extremes', you can be seen as an unfit parent to teach your kids anything outside what the law states.
The Gender Recognition Act is an example of how the law is being weaponised to uphold an ideology and to keep people in check. Get with the programme or suffer the legal consequences.
I tell that to my young grand niece all the time. So does her mother 🙏. You were born a girl & will always be a girl.
Absolutely! And don't ever stop telling her.
Like, who knew this would be a necessary part of parenting?
Somehow, we have to throw the Overton Window far back the other direction, and not just be fighting to say that 18.5 years old is still not a good age for butchery when the otherwise healthy patient does not fathom the implications - because they are propagandized/have no life experience, etc. We need some criminal trials and serious consequences... And, we have to get this cult ideology out of the schools.
Absolutely! 100%
Doctors shouldn’t be allowed to give unnecessary treatments. It’s just like thinking you need to have a healthy limb removed, the doctor should be treating the mental condition not affirming the patient’s delusions,