I find a lot of this fascinating, because when I was in graduate school, my focus was on the development of late adolescence between 18 and 24 years old. I worked in a college setting and spent most of my career in a career services type office. There is a whole body of literature that shows the marked development into an independent being that occurs in that timeframe. And it seems like we’ve just let that fall out of our heads.
The change between an 18-year-old college freshman for example to a 22-year-old college senior can be fairly dramatic and how they view themselves and interact with the world. The sheer number of students I worked with that wanted to change majors or careers in their junior year or even senior year, because they finally sorted out their voice from their parents voice was not a small number. And we’re only talking about jobs here. Not complete identity for the rest of your life.
Fascinating. What these deluded young people are doing is spending the time between 18-24 in a quest of the impossible - changing sex. They make themselves sexually disgusting. No one is interested in these freaks. And the worst is that this vital period of time is wasted, never to return. During my 18-24 period, I went to university and started grad school, like you in psych. I explored ideas, not mutilation of my person. It's a crime and a terrible waste that this time is given up in a delusional push.
Identity keeps changing, doesn't it? Even as far as being a sibling and child to being a parent or grandparent....
If it were only identity, well, I wouldn't be so worried. But irreversible medical procedures (drugs, surgery) based upon one's current state, at that age....
Yes, it is true that it does keep changing but the ability to think of oneself independent of your family units tends to solidify between 18 to 24 years old. Then your identity changes on another spectrum. however, that time period is crucial to separate yourself from others - and I think we’re seeing the fruits of that inability in the astronomical amount of social contagion, gender dysphoria teens.
Although, interestingly, I think an argument could be made that most of their parents are still struggling with this as well. Especially those affirming, younger and younger children. It almost seems like they have no identity unless it’s externally validated by others who are “in the right “
It’s a strange social justice movement that arrived, pretty much fully formed and backed by millions in financial terms and with the backing of global corporations, health services, businesses, governments and local governments, police services… in fact anyone and everyone with any degree of power. Considering that we are told that this is about a tiny number of people, one might wonder what the motivation is for all these organisations.
I mean Queer Theory, on which trans activism is based, is sort of the sleazy car salesman of left wing politics. It asserts you can change reality with language games and gaslighting... Sort of like the conman Donald Trump infamously said he can make a belief true with personal affirmation. Phony people trying to sell an unnecessary product have something in common with those who want to feel righteous without merit.
Trans activists work well as the useful idiot for corporate profit.
I said something similar recently on Graham Linehan’s substack….” I don’t suppose the gender ideologues and queer theorists realise that they are the useful idiots of authoritarian govts.” and of course the profiteers.
I’m referring to trans activism as left wing just as a way to simplify the point I’m making. I should have put left in quotes. Most people consider it on the left because it “self-IDs” as left wing. In reality, identifying as left wing functions as part of the con of Queer Theory.
I agree with you that the methods of trans activism are authoritarian. In many ways it parallels fascism in its intolerance of dissent, albeit less violent than historical examples of fascism. For now, anyway. Worryingly, that part of “the left” is creeping toward increased violence.
As a cis, white, gay man, I understand I'm now reclassified among the oppressor class. I'm not sure why, perhaps because I'm not at all attracted to AFABs who've had their bodies mutilated into something that doesn't remotely resemble a man.
I've objected from the beginning of the trans fad to tacking the T onto LGB. When I first started to encounter it, my reaction was "Huh? Trans has nothing to do with gay!" My resistance had no effect on the professional gays - those who made a living with full-time jobs in fields such as behavioral health connected to gay people. If prompted, they would give you the latest jive to show that trans was real, not some goofy delusion. In utero exposure to the wrong hormones was favored for a while, I think.
Lately, however, I have come to think of trans as a pernicious parasite on the gay equality movement. None of us can ignore the current recrudescence of serious homophobia, and I'm absolutely convinced it's the public's natural rejection of the more preposterous demands of the trans ideologues. Teaching it in elementary grades? Social transitioning kids and keeping it secret from their parents? Intact young men competing in high school girls'sports? Housing men in women's prisons or, even worse, shelters for battered women? It's a wonder there haven't been serious assaults on the teachers and other public facing authorities the parents see as responsible.
Unfortunately, I'm sure a huge majority of the public tend to lump gay, trans, drag, transvestism, perhaps leather Levi fetish all in one big hodgepodge. Let's face it, most people have no reason to think about these matters, much less learn and understand the differences. Lately, it seems the trans ideologues and their allies are intentionally conflating all these traits, adding to the public's confusion. The consequence is that gays are caught in the blowback of public outrage at the extreme measures advocated by radical trans ideologues.
From the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic into the '00's I invested a lot of time and emotional resources marching for gay equality, attending the rallies, and speaking occasionally to not entirely friendly audiences, mostly in my church, for our equality. I'm wildly but impotently angry at seeing the risk our hard won advances will go down the toilet because of a bunch of postmodernist twerps who think it's cute to identify as "queer". They are so ignorant they don't know it's fully as much hate speech as any racist slur. All too often it was the last thing a gay man heard before his skull was bashed in. Uncertain as it is, the only information I have seen would indicate that half or so of the people who self identify as "queer" are entirely heterosexual in their history and fantasy life; they are simply trying to grab some of the social cachet of oppression.
I am glad to see you state that you, as a politically left-leaning person, disown the gender cult. As a matter of practicality, though, I think it is part of progressive/leftist politics vs. being part of conservative/right-wing politics. Most of the people advocating for gender nonsense are left, save for maybe DJT Jr simping for Dylan Mulvainy (misspelling intentional).
I think it’s hilarious that Lia Thomas won’t be able to compete in the Olympics…she wanted to be the “Jackie Robinson” of trans athletes and instead she created a backlash that means women’s sports is protected at least from biological males that have gone through puberty.
Women's sports are NOT protected. The Biden admin recently released Title IX guidelines that explicitly PREVENT the protection of women's sports at colleges and high schools. And just today, EVERY Democrat in the House voted AGAINST a bill protecting women's sports, and Biden vowed to veto it if it passed the Senate (which it won't, because all Senate Democrats oppose it).
You are wrong. Biden’s Title IX rule protects HS varsity sports and college scholarship sports. Middle school jogging is probably not protected but if you really want to waste your time making sure trans girls can’t jog with girls then go for it. That bill was unnecessary and they did it because they don’t want to get more police on the streets or fund more border security.
It’s 2023…I have no problem calling adults whatever they want to be called and adults are free to dress however they want and adults are free to do whatever they want with their bodies. Btw, plastic surgeons advertise breast reduction surgery to young women so they can be more competitive in sports and I have no problem with that either. Protecting girl’s/women’s sports is important but most of the other adult trans agenda is better to just say “super!” and then just don’t engage them on the issues after that because what many trans people really want is drama and I refuse to give them that.
I agree that the pronouns they/them for trans individuals is stupid and I won’t do that. I dislike fads too but I don’t see the trans fad as that much worse than the tattoo fad…both are expensive and make individuals look like idiots. Luckily my grandfather had a few tattoos and so I associated them with old men…my friends weren’t so lucky and one of my friends got a tattoo and the “artist” screwed it up and the “artist” just shrugged a little and demanded full payment.
Considering that trans is a modern social identity, the first question should always be, why are we even using medicine at all to validate a faulty concept and self declaration of gender identity in the first place? The whole field of medicine is flawed from the outset, there should be NO gender clinics, anymore than we would have any clinic based on a religious dogma. This is all cosmetic medicine based on zero evidence of need apart from its own self fulfilling prophecy.
Wasting your own time is your business. Spending time and other resources agitating for public policies that present well-known risks of serious, permanent harm to others is quite another.
Please do click on the 30% discontinuation study, which takes you to an April, 2022 study. Once again, they hide the rate of detransition for natal females, which is 100%-64.4% = 35.6% detransition of those who did "masculinizing" treatment. The study data is structured in such a way as to highlight the "continuation," which is (they claim) about 81% in natal male mean age 19 subjects for a few years, only 64.4% in natal females. Again, the study does not cover the magic 7 years and later term; Dr. Az Hakeem, now working solely with detransitioners in the UK, observed that 7 years later appears commonly to be the time frame of regret onset. Dr. Stephen B. Levine noticed the same phenomenon. The "Dutch Protocol" researchers, Annelou De Vries and Thomas Steersma could only come up with 50% of the 2014 cohort for follow up. Do they have any paper published telling us how many this was? The original study started with 70 "transitioning" youth, lost 15, then one died after the surgery, 1 committed suicide after "affirmation" --leaving only 53 subjects as the foundation for a policy that is widely practiced in the US. For a practical window into why the cross-dressing and "transitioning" does not succeed long term, a guide to identifying how men look and behave while cross-dressing, why it's never fully convincing. From Trans Widow Ute Heggen YT channel:
It's worth noting also that males take longer to detransition or regret than females in several of the studies, and 4 years is shorter than the average detransition times seen for males in either Littman's or Vandenbussche's studies. If they wait longer the boys might catch up.
I think the bigger issue is tribalism. So many lower educated Trump supporters died needlessly after the pandemic response was politicized. So older wealthy Republicans got vaccinated while lower educated Republicans refused to get vaccinated and so those populations have significantly higher Covid death rates than other populations beginning in January 2021.
Good article. One issue not being discussed is that an in depth psychological evaluation over time is not really occurring in the process. There is much to explore there about current vs past standards of care. I hope you can dig in and interview some professionals in the field and write about this.
Speaking as someone who has taught medical ethics in medical schools, social justice and civil rights considerations have never been ethical principles relevant to making medical decisions. There is something more sinister going on to have influenced medical societies in this way. Infiltration by activists? Bribery? Threats and intimidation? Conflicts of interest by the decision-makers? Or all of the above.
its a lobby and PR campain that was implimented in a very careful and purposeful way. the goal was to trick people into thinking kids could be "trans" a magically type of new person so that parents couldnt legally object to kids taking gender meds.
WOW! Thanks, Kyle, for the link. The "Spectator" article is a real eye-opener. It took some fiddling with Chrome, but i finally got a link to the lobbying manual the article describes. I've long suspected there was an intentional effort to keep the trans lobby and its proposals out of the public eye, and these documents confirm it. (Having had an encounter with a London law firm on behalf of my employer, I'd bet the fee for that manual was in the upper six figures if not more. Those firms' fees are even worse than the Wall Street law factories.)
EDIT: The link I thought I'd copied didn't work after all. The manual itself, however, can be reached through the link labeled "document" in the sentence, "The document is the work of Dentons...." that begins the sixth paragraph or so of the "Spectator" article. Hope this helps my fellow obsessives about original sources.
What is going on is that very very rich men are backing the push of trans. These include John "Jennifer" Pritzker, a freak who fathered 3 children before he transitioned. He has Hilton money, his name is on the Med School of Northwestern, his brother is Gov of Illinois. He is the one-eyed king - he is a pervert, and his aim is to convince the rest of us normal non-perverts that we are perverted with the notion of "synthetic sexual identity". This includes the pervertification of children, and the destruction of the innocence of children. There are several other equally rich men who are on this quest to define all sex identities as choice, and to normalize perversion.
No reasonable person could argue with the cautionary principle being applied to stop the surgical mutilation of children to achieve "social justice." The problem is that this "debate" is actually a matter of religious faith instead of scientific reason. The social justice, trans/queer, Democrats are preaching their message of hate and genital mutilation from their pulpits on television and in the White House.
They encourage acts of perversion against children, and have turned medical universities into lunatic asylums. They have converted hospitals into charnel houses, law courts into circus shows, and scientific laboratories into weapons of mass destruction. Scientific reason does little to shame or dissuade religious zealots who have the full backing of a morally depraved President. Scientific arguments mean nothing to them. Only a change in political power can end the carnage.
Profit is the obvious motivation, they are manufacturing a social contagion in order to create life long medical patients …. true evil. But for governments, Transgenderism is the Trojan horse for totalitarianism. Gender ideology is based on individualism, this creates chaos which authoritarians can then use to pass laws which limit free speech and behaviour. The truth becomes illegal. Orwell would say ‘I told you so’.
Big pharma/tech has latched on to the ideology as a means of making money, on that we can agree. But it’s not the whole story. The ideology is being pushed by the left which sees it as the latest civil rights cause. They’re so far up their own backsides that they’ve lost the ability to think critically and instead spend all their time trying to shut down debate with abuse, threats of cancellation, threats of violence etc. The left are the new fascists, they have no arguments, only abuse and fearmongering. Anyone who disagrees with the mantras is…….insert your own adjectives. You have swallowed the propaganda yourself and are unable to see how this ideology suits the authoritarian left. It’s the perfect excuse to bring in laws to restrict free speech and limit behaviour.
For goodness sake, you can’t bear to be disagreed with can you. Look, I agree with much of what you are saying. This is not a left/ right issue. I agree with this last comment, they are self obsessed idiots. All I’m saying is that in each country it’s the left pushing it, spouting the religious mantras, banging on about inclusivity and our trans brothers and sisters who are so hard done by 🤮….. Starmer and co, Biden and co, same in Canada, Australia, NZ, Europe. Can we now agree that we are on the same side fighting for truth, reality, a functioning society and most importantly for children not to be mutilated? Please? 🙂
Possibly,…..I think you could say that the anthill is made up of a bunch of narcissistic individuals who are self obsessed. Either way, it causes chaos. As to your point that it is not of the left, I strongly disagree. In each country gender ideology is being pushed by the left. The fact that the far left has morphed into an intolerant, fascistic movement is a problem which needs fixing but denying the problem doesn’t help….and I speak as a lifelong leftie, an ex Labour member of many years here in the UK.
the sooner democrats wake up and realize they have been duped the better is it for democrats. gender ideology is very unpopular. the only reason anyone supports it is becuase they know literially nothing about it so are susceptible to gender activist PR and marketing which is 100% false information. once ppl learn that democrats are pushing a mens rights movement that erases the rights of a half a doz groups, harms women, harms gays, harms kids, harms parents and harms dysphoric ppl - dems chances of getting elected decrease.
its in gop intrests to draw attn to how dems have swallowed a fraud that harms women, gays and kids. its in dems intrest to realize theyve been conned into an a once in 100 year crime and medical scandal that people wont forget
with razor thin margins in many purple states, dems could sacrifice gains on all of their important issues becuase they stupidly supported a fraud.
It's not the Republicans mission either. And Democrat squishiness on nuclear power may well end up being more harmful than anything the Repubicans are doing. A serious reduction in fossil fuel use in the US would require big taxes, like $5/gallon for gas, minimum. See any Democrat proposing anything like that? I don't.
Obama was bought and paid for by Big Nuclear! Nuclear isn’t economical because of fracking. Why do you think Nikki Haley resigned as governor right before South Carolina ratepayers were going to get stuck with an $8 billion bill for an unfinished nuclear plant??
I doubt that transitioning provides any long term happiness outcomes. Transitioning has no effect on the underlying cause of the gender dysphoria. The mental disconnects still exist no matter what someone does to their external body. So someone who is severely depressed as a man will likely end up severely depressed as a "woman". Because the depression is the issue not their gender.
Unless we make large strides forward in psychiatric treatment I doubt there is a cure for these issues.
most pysch issues get better over time without any medical treatment or medical provider participation. we know most kids grow out gender dysphoria on their own, unless given harmful gender meds or socially transitioned. that makes sense becuase dysphoria is caused by pysch issues such as trama, abuse or just normal dysphoria from being gay. theres no reason to think adults dont get better on their own over time. they do. that is, unless the gender biz tricks them into quackery. if that happens they get worse
The high incidence of comorbidities with the accepted signs and symptoms of GD in itself should suggest extreme caution in making a diagnosis, much less a treatment plan with well-known risks. What's even more alarming to me is treating the comorbidities as merely symptoms of an underlying gender dysphoria, supposedly disappearing once the GD is addressed.
It isn't just that most kids mature out of their GD when there is no interference with their development. The most common outcome is growing into perfectly normal gay teens. I've heard of one sceptic worrying whether we're "trans'ing away the gay". Even worse, I've seen reports of kids whose internalized homophobia has led them to seek transition. Changing their sexual attraction would be illegal "conversion therapy"; mutilating their bodies to convert them to a crude physical resemblance to a heterosexual is the latest in hip, slick and cool treatment.
i can see how there is baggage with the term for sure. but there is something going on with young ppl with gender dysphoria who later grow to be gay as adults. the 11 studys that sought to find out if kids with gender dysphoria grow out of it found out they do on their own ~65-95% of the time. these same studys also asked about sexuality. they found about two thirds grew to be gay adults.
now many of these kids are told theyre really "trans". instead of letting their dysphoria resolve on their own, theyre given puberty blockers. the blockers are so toxic they only stay on the blockers a short time and then theyre pushed to hormones. once either of these things occure the dysphoria doesnt resolve. UK, sweden finland reviews found these meds do nothing to help dysphoria, mental health, social function or anything else. yet, theyre lied to by quack drs who are getting rich off them. most kids presenting with this now are girls. we dont have good info whats going on with them.
Why are so many girls deciding they’d rather be boys?
Chris, I'm with you in objecting to the confrontational belligerence we sometimes saw in the '80's, especially from Act Up (though I largely agreed with their objectives) and even more so, to the outlandish lewd displays that we still see occasionally. What I meant by "internalized homophobia" is the condition that was briefly listed in the DSM as "Ego dystonic homosexuality" (q.v., Wikipedia). It's something I think i met most of the diagnostic criteria for. I came of age in Texas in the late '50's.
When i first started to experience attractions that were totally different from what I'd been told to expect, I was horribly confused and conflicted, utterly unable to understand what was going on. I didn't have the words or ideas for it but suspected it might have something to do with words I had heard, "queer" or "fairy". But then, I was sure "queers" were mythical creatures like vampires or something. I was certainly the only one in the world who felt the way i did. The first time i could apply those words to myself was in overhearing some older boys laughing and joking about "rolling queers" and realizing, they are talking about people like me. The only images I had were the nelly caricatures on TV. The only occupations i could foresee were hairdresser or florist if you didn't have any talent as a performer, certainly not lawyer or college professor or anything serious.
I made the firm resolution for myself that I simply would not be that way, and i managed to keep that resolution for the most part until my mid-thirties. I'll omit the sordid tale of the consequences except to say when I finally realized I had to stop drinking or just go on and kill myself, I also realized i would have to accept what I was and deal with it.
I wasn't afraid of gay people; I was afraid of being gay. Having lived through the advances we've made since AIDS shoved us out of our closets, I have imagined gay kids would not have to endure all of the crap my generation did. There certainly have been improvements albeit neither universal or uniform. Now, when I read reports of kids who would rather be a poor imitation of the opposite sex than gay, I come close to tears and hope, dear God, please let these children know You love them as much as any of Your children. Instead, what we have are entertainers, teachers, and worst of all, the "helping professions" encouraging the kids in the solution to their conflicts they have imagined. "Conversion Therapy" is now prohibited ethically if not legally. The pros can't convert the kids' feelings of attraction to the same sex to attraction to the opposite sex, but hey! Here's an idea! With the right surgeries and mind-bending and body-altering drugs, we can convert their bodies to the opposite sex. Well, yeah, resembling the opposite sex, well, sort of. Problem solved!
Starting from different premises, Western scientists, or so they claim, have pretty much reached the same conclusion the Iranian mullahs reached from interpretation of their scriptures. Sex between two men - they don't much care about women - is a hideous violation of God's design for humanity and fully warrants their being thrown off tall buildings. But when such a miscreant consents to surgical mutilation and a lifetime of powerful drugs, he is restored to compliance with God's will. The result of the doctrine is Iran's being second only to Thailand in the number of sex change surgeries. See https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29832690 or just Google "gender reassignment surgery in iran".
I agree when it comes to children presenting with gender dysphoria. Because the vast majority that are being diagnosed with it these days do not have real gender dysphoria. It is peer pressure induced in a lot of case or as you mentioned simply the early signs of homosexuality.
But adults who have gender dysphoria usually do not get better. It is at present a permanent condition.
or many adults are having fun freely chosing to ID as another gender as a hobby and dont have any dysphoria at all. but even if they do have dysphoria, theres no evidence gender meds or affirming opposite gender helps . UK, finland sweden found that for kids the with dysphoria gender meds do more harm than good. what dysphoric ppl need is non affirming pysch care to find out the source of their pysch issues which are the actual cause of their dysphoria. what they dont need are millionaire drs who lie to them and tell them their psych issues will be improved by becoming a life long lab rat. thats fraud. amsterdam says those on the meds die early 2x more than ave and their suicidd rates go sky high after they take the meds for several years.
Yep I agree with that. Lots of adults these days are presenting with social gender dysphoria which is not real gender dysphoria, they do it because they think it makes them rebels or cool and woke.
But I support their right to do anything they want that does not harm others.
The real issue is the activists and doctors harming children.
Trans ideology is part of the postmodernist project of destroying the concept of truth as understood by most people. It denies the very existence of truth as an external, verifiable reality and insists there is nothing but expressions of power. The most vivid and succinct expression i have found was in an article in "National Review" on a current controversy in Canada over teaching math:
<<Laurie Rubel, an associate professor of mathematics education, explaining that proponents of “2 + 2 = 4” are grounded “in white, Western mathematics that marginalizes other possible values.”
<<Rubel argued that supporters of math’s political neutrality were oblivious to a deeper point: “It’s about truth: who holds the truth, who decides what is true, and how open we are as a society to multiple truths.”>>
Other possible values? Multiple truths? Would you want to drive your children over a bridge designed by engineers educated in a math that yields other possible values or multiple truths?
The trans movement and its propaganda is primarily political. The roots lie in post war philosophy, such as Jacques Derrida’s concepts of deconstruction; the “rejection of the common sense idea that words refer straightforwardly to things in the real world” as Puckrose and Lindsay put it. And in the postmodernist paradigm of ‘cultural constructivism’- there’s no objective truth, just relative cultural context; science is but one cultural construct.
The political tool is manipulation of language - new truths mean new definitions of words that have previously had clear meanings since the Sumerians first wrote them down. Mao and Lenin both understood the importance of indoctrination of the young. The focus on primary school age children’s education is right out of their playbook.
Science, and particularly biology, are useful tools for them only in as much as they can cherry pick data that suit their political purpose- eg in redefining what is meant by biological sex and gender, or as in this instance what constitutes good medical evidence.
Data, facts and words that don’t suit the political narrative are either simply ignored, or refuted with the emotive vigour that extremists always employ. Children harmed by radical interventions will be treated in the same way. Collateral damage is acceptable to fanatics - be it terrorists shooting hostages or eco-nuts defacing works of art, or allowing men in drag to populate women’s spaces even if it means the occasional assault or rape, or academics losing their jobs.
To disagree is to be the enemy. A Nazi even. So a lot of their behaviours are about signalling their zeal and commitment to their fellow collaborators - a bit like the youth in China denouncing their parents or contemporaries during the Cultural Revolution.
In Trans-Wonderland "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
Up until now the trans lobby have been the masters, and those on the Left their willing acolytes.
One hopes the type of scientific rational argument advocated in this article and on this site can win out. Maybe the tide is turning. But in politics truth is often subverted to the cause. I don’t see the Left capitulating on this any time soon.
Yesterday I finished reading Hannah Barnes' book "Time To Think" which chronicles the issues and failures at the GIDS clinic in London UK. The bar for intervention appears to be that if you are referred, you are trans. No real assessment taking place in the vast majority of cases. Between a quarter and a third of staff working there went to their administrations "safeguarding" service to express their concern that children were being harmed. The safeguarding lead reported these concerns and had them consistently dismissed. The CEO of the trust overseeing this clinic seemed unwilling to do anything to destroy the income stream it brought in, and issued press releases trashing the reputation of senior clinicians who authored reports suggesting changes. It got to the point where anyone asking a question was deemed transphobic and advised to seek work elsewhere, whilst many of the unhappy staff referred to the enthusiasts as homophobic, given that they refused to entertain the possibility that some referred kids were actually gay. At the root of it all was ideology, and a far too close link between the advocacy groups like Mermaids, that felt able to request particular interventions, or a change of clinician if a patient felt they weren't being put on the medical pathway quickly enough. Requests that were routinely acceded to. It's worse than a scandal: it's a tragedy.
I believe the book still hasn't found an American publisher, but you can find it on the Canadian or UK Amazon sites. Beware that there are dozens of look-alike titles designed to make you order the wrong book!
Google John Hopkins former chief psychiatrist, Paul McHugh MD.
First read his work before you read the nonsense desperately attempting to refute his scientific observations regarding the dangers of this surgical and chemical intervention
I find a lot of this fascinating, because when I was in graduate school, my focus was on the development of late adolescence between 18 and 24 years old. I worked in a college setting and spent most of my career in a career services type office. There is a whole body of literature that shows the marked development into an independent being that occurs in that timeframe. And it seems like we’ve just let that fall out of our heads.
The change between an 18-year-old college freshman for example to a 22-year-old college senior can be fairly dramatic and how they view themselves and interact with the world. The sheer number of students I worked with that wanted to change majors or careers in their junior year or even senior year, because they finally sorted out their voice from their parents voice was not a small number. And we’re only talking about jobs here. Not complete identity for the rest of your life.
Fascinating. What these deluded young people are doing is spending the time between 18-24 in a quest of the impossible - changing sex. They make themselves sexually disgusting. No one is interested in these freaks. And the worst is that this vital period of time is wasted, never to return. During my 18-24 period, I went to university and started grad school, like you in psych. I explored ideas, not mutilation of my person. It's a crime and a terrible waste that this time is given up in a delusional push.
Identity keeps changing, doesn't it? Even as far as being a sibling and child to being a parent or grandparent....
If it were only identity, well, I wouldn't be so worried. But irreversible medical procedures (drugs, surgery) based upon one's current state, at that age....
Yes, it is true that it does keep changing but the ability to think of oneself independent of your family units tends to solidify between 18 to 24 years old. Then your identity changes on another spectrum. however, that time period is crucial to separate yourself from others - and I think we’re seeing the fruits of that inability in the astronomical amount of social contagion, gender dysphoria teens.
Although, interestingly, I think an argument could be made that most of their parents are still struggling with this as well. Especially those affirming, younger and younger children. It almost seems like they have no identity unless it’s externally validated by others who are “in the right “
Isn’t that the age that young men typically descend into mental illness?? Most mass shooters are in that age range.
It’s a strange social justice movement that arrived, pretty much fully formed and backed by millions in financial terms and with the backing of global corporations, health services, businesses, governments and local governments, police services… in fact anyone and everyone with any degree of power. Considering that we are told that this is about a tiny number of people, one might wonder what the motivation is for all these organisations.
I mean Queer Theory, on which trans activism is based, is sort of the sleazy car salesman of left wing politics. It asserts you can change reality with language games and gaslighting... Sort of like the conman Donald Trump infamously said he can make a belief true with personal affirmation. Phony people trying to sell an unnecessary product have something in common with those who want to feel righteous without merit.
Trans activists work well as the useful idiot for corporate profit.
I said something similar recently on Graham Linehan’s substack….” I don’t suppose the gender ideologues and queer theorists realise that they are the useful idiots of authoritarian govts.” and of course the profiteers.
I’m referring to trans activism as left wing just as a way to simplify the point I’m making. I should have put left in quotes. Most people consider it on the left because it “self-IDs” as left wing. In reality, identifying as left wing functions as part of the con of Queer Theory.
I agree with you that the methods of trans activism are authoritarian. In many ways it parallels fascism in its intolerance of dissent, albeit less violent than historical examples of fascism. For now, anyway. Worryingly, that part of “the left” is creeping toward increased violence.
As a cis, white, gay man, I understand I'm now reclassified among the oppressor class. I'm not sure why, perhaps because I'm not at all attracted to AFABs who've had their bodies mutilated into something that doesn't remotely resemble a man.
I've objected from the beginning of the trans fad to tacking the T onto LGB. When I first started to encounter it, my reaction was "Huh? Trans has nothing to do with gay!" My resistance had no effect on the professional gays - those who made a living with full-time jobs in fields such as behavioral health connected to gay people. If prompted, they would give you the latest jive to show that trans was real, not some goofy delusion. In utero exposure to the wrong hormones was favored for a while, I think.
Lately, however, I have come to think of trans as a pernicious parasite on the gay equality movement. None of us can ignore the current recrudescence of serious homophobia, and I'm absolutely convinced it's the public's natural rejection of the more preposterous demands of the trans ideologues. Teaching it in elementary grades? Social transitioning kids and keeping it secret from their parents? Intact young men competing in high school girls'sports? Housing men in women's prisons or, even worse, shelters for battered women? It's a wonder there haven't been serious assaults on the teachers and other public facing authorities the parents see as responsible.
Unfortunately, I'm sure a huge majority of the public tend to lump gay, trans, drag, transvestism, perhaps leather Levi fetish all in one big hodgepodge. Let's face it, most people have no reason to think about these matters, much less learn and understand the differences. Lately, it seems the trans ideologues and their allies are intentionally conflating all these traits, adding to the public's confusion. The consequence is that gays are caught in the blowback of public outrage at the extreme measures advocated by radical trans ideologues.
From the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic into the '00's I invested a lot of time and emotional resources marching for gay equality, attending the rallies, and speaking occasionally to not entirely friendly audiences, mostly in my church, for our equality. I'm wildly but impotently angry at seeing the risk our hard won advances will go down the toilet because of a bunch of postmodernist twerps who think it's cute to identify as "queer". They are so ignorant they don't know it's fully as much hate speech as any racist slur. All too often it was the last thing a gay man heard before his skull was bashed in. Uncertain as it is, the only information I have seen would indicate that half or so of the people who self identify as "queer" are entirely heterosexual in their history and fantasy life; they are simply trying to grab some of the social cachet of oppression.
I am glad to see you state that you, as a politically left-leaning person, disown the gender cult. As a matter of practicality, though, I think it is part of progressive/leftist politics vs. being part of conservative/right-wing politics. Most of the people advocating for gender nonsense are left, save for maybe DJT Jr simping for Dylan Mulvainy (misspelling intentional).
I think it’s hilarious that Lia Thomas won’t be able to compete in the Olympics…she wanted to be the “Jackie Robinson” of trans athletes and instead she created a backlash that means women’s sports is protected at least from biological males that have gone through puberty.
He.
Women's sports are NOT protected. The Biden admin recently released Title IX guidelines that explicitly PREVENT the protection of women's sports at colleges and high schools. And just today, EVERY Democrat in the House voted AGAINST a bill protecting women's sports, and Biden vowed to veto it if it passed the Senate (which it won't, because all Senate Democrats oppose it).
You are wrong. Biden’s Title IX rule protects HS varsity sports and college scholarship sports. Middle school jogging is probably not protected but if you really want to waste your time making sure trans girls can’t jog with girls then go for it. That bill was unnecessary and they did it because they don’t want to get more police on the streets or fund more border security.
He, absolutely. Here he is, on an official UPenn Athletics page:
https://pennathletics.com/sports/mens-swimming-and-diving/roster/will-thomas/14590
It’s 2023…I have no problem calling adults whatever they want to be called and adults are free to dress however they want and adults are free to do whatever they want with their bodies. Btw, plastic surgeons advertise breast reduction surgery to young women so they can be more competitive in sports and I have no problem with that either. Protecting girl’s/women’s sports is important but most of the other adult trans agenda is better to just say “super!” and then just don’t engage them on the issues after that because what many trans people really want is drama and I refuse to give them that.
Hard to penetrate ignorance as staggering as yours.
OUTRAGE!!! That little boy is jogging with girls!!! OUTRAGE!!
"I have no problem calling adults whatever they want to be called"
Great, I'm an adult, and I want to be called "your majesty".
Are you going to comply?
Sure, Princess Mark. ;)
I agree that the pronouns they/them for trans individuals is stupid and I won’t do that. I dislike fads too but I don’t see the trans fad as that much worse than the tattoo fad…both are expensive and make individuals look like idiots. Luckily my grandfather had a few tattoos and so I associated them with old men…my friends weren’t so lucky and one of my friends got a tattoo and the “artist” screwed it up and the “artist” just shrugged a little and demanded full payment.
Considering that trans is a modern social identity, the first question should always be, why are we even using medicine at all to validate a faulty concept and self declaration of gender identity in the first place? The whole field of medicine is flawed from the outset, there should be NO gender clinics, anymore than we would have any clinic based on a religious dogma. This is all cosmetic medicine based on zero evidence of need apart from its own self fulfilling prophecy.
This can all be dispensed with by simply recognizing reality.
There is no such thing as "I was born in the wrong body."
There is no such thing as a "transgender child."
If you can't bring yourselves to say this simple truth directly, you're wasting time.
Wasting your own time is your business. Spending time and other resources agitating for public policies that present well-known risks of serious, permanent harm to others is quite another.
Please do click on the 30% discontinuation study, which takes you to an April, 2022 study. Once again, they hide the rate of detransition for natal females, which is 100%-64.4% = 35.6% detransition of those who did "masculinizing" treatment. The study data is structured in such a way as to highlight the "continuation," which is (they claim) about 81% in natal male mean age 19 subjects for a few years, only 64.4% in natal females. Again, the study does not cover the magic 7 years and later term; Dr. Az Hakeem, now working solely with detransitioners in the UK, observed that 7 years later appears commonly to be the time frame of regret onset. Dr. Stephen B. Levine noticed the same phenomenon. The "Dutch Protocol" researchers, Annelou De Vries and Thomas Steersma could only come up with 50% of the 2014 cohort for follow up. Do they have any paper published telling us how many this was? The original study started with 70 "transitioning" youth, lost 15, then one died after the surgery, 1 committed suicide after "affirmation" --leaving only 53 subjects as the foundation for a policy that is widely practiced in the US. For a practical window into why the cross-dressing and "transitioning" does not succeed long term, a guide to identifying how men look and behave while cross-dressing, why it's never fully convincing. From Trans Widow Ute Heggen YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y777OY1CxnU
It's worth noting also that males take longer to detransition or regret than females in several of the studies, and 4 years is shorter than the average detransition times seen for males in either Littman's or Vandenbussche's studies. If they wait longer the boys might catch up.
If you have links to these studies, very much appreciated!
Everything science related must stop considering social justice concepts: the two are diametrically opposed.
Michael Mohr
‘Sincere American Writing’
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
I think the bigger issue is tribalism. So many lower educated Trump supporters died needlessly after the pandemic response was politicized. So older wealthy Republicans got vaccinated while lower educated Republicans refused to get vaccinated and so those populations have significantly higher Covid death rates than other populations beginning in January 2021.
Good article. One issue not being discussed is that an in depth psychological evaluation over time is not really occurring in the process. There is much to explore there about current vs past standards of care. I hope you can dig in and interview some professionals in the field and write about this.
Speaking as someone who has taught medical ethics in medical schools, social justice and civil rights considerations have never been ethical principles relevant to making medical decisions. There is something more sinister going on to have influenced medical societies in this way. Infiltration by activists? Bribery? Threats and intimidation? Conflicts of interest by the decision-makers? Or all of the above.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists/
its a lobby and PR campain that was implimented in a very careful and purposeful way. the goal was to trick people into thinking kids could be "trans" a magically type of new person so that parents couldnt legally object to kids taking gender meds.
WOW! Thanks, Kyle, for the link. The "Spectator" article is a real eye-opener. It took some fiddling with Chrome, but i finally got a link to the lobbying manual the article describes. I've long suspected there was an intentional effort to keep the trans lobby and its proposals out of the public eye, and these documents confirm it. (Having had an encounter with a London law firm on behalf of my employer, I'd bet the fee for that manual was in the upper six figures if not more. Those firms' fees are even worse than the Wall Street law factories.)
EDIT: The link I thought I'd copied didn't work after all. The manual itself, however, can be reached through the link labeled "document" in the sentence, "The document is the work of Dentons...." that begins the sixth paragraph or so of the "Spectator" article. Hope this helps my fellow obsessives about original sources.
What is going on is that very very rich men are backing the push of trans. These include John "Jennifer" Pritzker, a freak who fathered 3 children before he transitioned. He has Hilton money, his name is on the Med School of Northwestern, his brother is Gov of Illinois. He is the one-eyed king - he is a pervert, and his aim is to convince the rest of us normal non-perverts that we are perverted with the notion of "synthetic sexual identity". This includes the pervertification of children, and the destruction of the innocence of children. There are several other equally rich men who are on this quest to define all sex identities as choice, and to normalize perversion.
Makes me shudder with disgust.
Medical professionals should be immune to this form of corruption. But they are obviously not. Appalling.
Here is an interesting discussion of this:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/billionaire-family-pushing-synthetic-sex-identities-ssi-pritzkers
It does make me wonder how we can ever push back against that kind of money. I hope that millions of voices saying ‘No’ will be enough.
She’s hot. ;)
HOTTER THAN a DUMPSTER FIRE IN HELL!!!
No reasonable person could argue with the cautionary principle being applied to stop the surgical mutilation of children to achieve "social justice." The problem is that this "debate" is actually a matter of religious faith instead of scientific reason. The social justice, trans/queer, Democrats are preaching their message of hate and genital mutilation from their pulpits on television and in the White House.
They encourage acts of perversion against children, and have turned medical universities into lunatic asylums. They have converted hospitals into charnel houses, law courts into circus shows, and scientific laboratories into weapons of mass destruction. Scientific reason does little to shame or dissuade religious zealots who have the full backing of a morally depraved President. Scientific arguments mean nothing to them. Only a change in political power can end the carnage.
Profit is the obvious motivation, they are manufacturing a social contagion in order to create life long medical patients …. true evil. But for governments, Transgenderism is the Trojan horse for totalitarianism. Gender ideology is based on individualism, this creates chaos which authoritarians can then use to pass laws which limit free speech and behaviour. The truth becomes illegal. Orwell would say ‘I told you so’.
Big pharma/tech has latched on to the ideology as a means of making money, on that we can agree. But it’s not the whole story. The ideology is being pushed by the left which sees it as the latest civil rights cause. They’re so far up their own backsides that they’ve lost the ability to think critically and instead spend all their time trying to shut down debate with abuse, threats of cancellation, threats of violence etc. The left are the new fascists, they have no arguments, only abuse and fearmongering. Anyone who disagrees with the mantras is…….insert your own adjectives. You have swallowed the propaganda yourself and are unable to see how this ideology suits the authoritarian left. It’s the perfect excuse to bring in laws to restrict free speech and limit behaviour.
For goodness sake, you can’t bear to be disagreed with can you. Look, I agree with much of what you are saying. This is not a left/ right issue. I agree with this last comment, they are self obsessed idiots. All I’m saying is that in each country it’s the left pushing it, spouting the religious mantras, banging on about inclusivity and our trans brothers and sisters who are so hard done by 🤮….. Starmer and co, Biden and co, same in Canada, Australia, NZ, Europe. Can we now agree that we are on the same side fighting for truth, reality, a functioning society and most importantly for children not to be mutilated? Please? 🙂
Possibly,…..I think you could say that the anthill is made up of a bunch of narcissistic individuals who are self obsessed. Either way, it causes chaos. As to your point that it is not of the left, I strongly disagree. In each country gender ideology is being pushed by the left. The fact that the far left has morphed into an intolerant, fascistic movement is a problem which needs fixing but denying the problem doesn’t help….and I speak as a lifelong leftie, an ex Labour member of many years here in the UK.
By your abusive sneer you’ve rather proved my point about intolerance on the left.
the sooner democrats wake up and realize they have been duped the better is it for democrats. gender ideology is very unpopular. the only reason anyone supports it is becuase they know literially nothing about it so are susceptible to gender activist PR and marketing which is 100% false information. once ppl learn that democrats are pushing a mens rights movement that erases the rights of a half a doz groups, harms women, harms gays, harms kids, harms parents and harms dysphoric ppl - dems chances of getting elected decrease.
its in gop intrests to draw attn to how dems have swallowed a fraud that harms women, gays and kids. its in dems intrest to realize theyve been conned into an a once in 100 year crime and medical scandal that people wont forget
with razor thin margins in many purple states, dems could sacrifice gains on all of their important issues becuase they stupidly supported a fraud.
The Democrats aren't going to save the planet.
It's not the Republicans mission either. And Democrat squishiness on nuclear power may well end up being more harmful than anything the Repubicans are doing. A serious reduction in fossil fuel use in the US would require big taxes, like $5/gallon for gas, minimum. See any Democrat proposing anything like that? I don't.
Obama was bought and paid for by Big Nuclear! Nuclear isn’t economical because of fracking. Why do you think Nikki Haley resigned as governor right before South Carolina ratepayers were going to get stuck with an $8 billion bill for an unfinished nuclear plant??
I doubt that transitioning provides any long term happiness outcomes. Transitioning has no effect on the underlying cause of the gender dysphoria. The mental disconnects still exist no matter what someone does to their external body. So someone who is severely depressed as a man will likely end up severely depressed as a "woman". Because the depression is the issue not their gender.
Unless we make large strides forward in psychiatric treatment I doubt there is a cure for these issues.
most pysch issues get better over time without any medical treatment or medical provider participation. we know most kids grow out gender dysphoria on their own, unless given harmful gender meds or socially transitioned. that makes sense becuase dysphoria is caused by pysch issues such as trama, abuse or just normal dysphoria from being gay. theres no reason to think adults dont get better on their own over time. they do. that is, unless the gender biz tricks them into quackery. if that happens they get worse
The high incidence of comorbidities with the accepted signs and symptoms of GD in itself should suggest extreme caution in making a diagnosis, much less a treatment plan with well-known risks. What's even more alarming to me is treating the comorbidities as merely symptoms of an underlying gender dysphoria, supposedly disappearing once the GD is addressed.
It isn't just that most kids mature out of their GD when there is no interference with their development. The most common outcome is growing into perfectly normal gay teens. I've heard of one sceptic worrying whether we're "trans'ing away the gay". Even worse, I've seen reports of kids whose internalized homophobia has led them to seek transition. Changing their sexual attraction would be illegal "conversion therapy"; mutilating their bodies to convert them to a crude physical resemblance to a heterosexual is the latest in hip, slick and cool treatment.
i can see how there is baggage with the term for sure. but there is something going on with young ppl with gender dysphoria who later grow to be gay as adults. the 11 studys that sought to find out if kids with gender dysphoria grow out of it found out they do on their own ~65-95% of the time. these same studys also asked about sexuality. they found about two thirds grew to be gay adults.
now many of these kids are told theyre really "trans". instead of letting their dysphoria resolve on their own, theyre given puberty blockers. the blockers are so toxic they only stay on the blockers a short time and then theyre pushed to hormones. once either of these things occure the dysphoria doesnt resolve. UK, sweden finland reviews found these meds do nothing to help dysphoria, mental health, social function or anything else. yet, theyre lied to by quack drs who are getting rich off them. most kids presenting with this now are girls. we dont have good info whats going on with them.
Why are so many girls deciding they’d rather be boys?
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1587566678858256394.html
https://www.transgendertrend.com/children-change-minds/
Chris, I'm with you in objecting to the confrontational belligerence we sometimes saw in the '80's, especially from Act Up (though I largely agreed with their objectives) and even more so, to the outlandish lewd displays that we still see occasionally. What I meant by "internalized homophobia" is the condition that was briefly listed in the DSM as "Ego dystonic homosexuality" (q.v., Wikipedia). It's something I think i met most of the diagnostic criteria for. I came of age in Texas in the late '50's.
When i first started to experience attractions that were totally different from what I'd been told to expect, I was horribly confused and conflicted, utterly unable to understand what was going on. I didn't have the words or ideas for it but suspected it might have something to do with words I had heard, "queer" or "fairy". But then, I was sure "queers" were mythical creatures like vampires or something. I was certainly the only one in the world who felt the way i did. The first time i could apply those words to myself was in overhearing some older boys laughing and joking about "rolling queers" and realizing, they are talking about people like me. The only images I had were the nelly caricatures on TV. The only occupations i could foresee were hairdresser or florist if you didn't have any talent as a performer, certainly not lawyer or college professor or anything serious.
I made the firm resolution for myself that I simply would not be that way, and i managed to keep that resolution for the most part until my mid-thirties. I'll omit the sordid tale of the consequences except to say when I finally realized I had to stop drinking or just go on and kill myself, I also realized i would have to accept what I was and deal with it.
I wasn't afraid of gay people; I was afraid of being gay. Having lived through the advances we've made since AIDS shoved us out of our closets, I have imagined gay kids would not have to endure all of the crap my generation did. There certainly have been improvements albeit neither universal or uniform. Now, when I read reports of kids who would rather be a poor imitation of the opposite sex than gay, I come close to tears and hope, dear God, please let these children know You love them as much as any of Your children. Instead, what we have are entertainers, teachers, and worst of all, the "helping professions" encouraging the kids in the solution to their conflicts they have imagined. "Conversion Therapy" is now prohibited ethically if not legally. The pros can't convert the kids' feelings of attraction to the same sex to attraction to the opposite sex, but hey! Here's an idea! With the right surgeries and mind-bending and body-altering drugs, we can convert their bodies to the opposite sex. Well, yeah, resembling the opposite sex, well, sort of. Problem solved!
Starting from different premises, Western scientists, or so they claim, have pretty much reached the same conclusion the Iranian mullahs reached from interpretation of their scriptures. Sex between two men - they don't much care about women - is a hideous violation of God's design for humanity and fully warrants their being thrown off tall buildings. But when such a miscreant consents to surgical mutilation and a lifetime of powerful drugs, he is restored to compliance with God's will. The result of the doctrine is Iran's being second only to Thailand in the number of sex change surgeries. See https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29832690 or just Google "gender reassignment surgery in iran".
I agree when it comes to children presenting with gender dysphoria. Because the vast majority that are being diagnosed with it these days do not have real gender dysphoria. It is peer pressure induced in a lot of case or as you mentioned simply the early signs of homosexuality.
But adults who have gender dysphoria usually do not get better. It is at present a permanent condition.
or many adults are having fun freely chosing to ID as another gender as a hobby and dont have any dysphoria at all. but even if they do have dysphoria, theres no evidence gender meds or affirming opposite gender helps . UK, finland sweden found that for kids the with dysphoria gender meds do more harm than good. what dysphoric ppl need is non affirming pysch care to find out the source of their pysch issues which are the actual cause of their dysphoria. what they dont need are millionaire drs who lie to them and tell them their psych issues will be improved by becoming a life long lab rat. thats fraud. amsterdam says those on the meds die early 2x more than ave and their suicidd rates go sky high after they take the meds for several years.
Yep I agree with that. Lots of adults these days are presenting with social gender dysphoria which is not real gender dysphoria, they do it because they think it makes them rebels or cool and woke.
But I support their right to do anything they want that does not harm others.
The real issue is the activists and doctors harming children.
Trans ideology is part of the postmodernist project of destroying the concept of truth as understood by most people. It denies the very existence of truth as an external, verifiable reality and insists there is nothing but expressions of power. The most vivid and succinct expression i have found was in an article in "National Review" on a current controversy in Canada over teaching math:
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/22white-supremacy-how-woke-ideologues-corrupted-canadas-math-curriculum/
<<Laurie Rubel, an associate professor of mathematics education, explaining that proponents of “2 + 2 = 4” are grounded “in white, Western mathematics that marginalizes other possible values.”
<<Rubel argued that supporters of math’s political neutrality were oblivious to a deeper point: “It’s about truth: who holds the truth, who decides what is true, and how open we are as a society to multiple truths.”>>
Other possible values? Multiple truths? Would you want to drive your children over a bridge designed by engineers educated in a math that yields other possible values or multiple truths?
The trans movement and its propaganda is primarily political. The roots lie in post war philosophy, such as Jacques Derrida’s concepts of deconstruction; the “rejection of the common sense idea that words refer straightforwardly to things in the real world” as Puckrose and Lindsay put it. And in the postmodernist paradigm of ‘cultural constructivism’- there’s no objective truth, just relative cultural context; science is but one cultural construct.
The political tool is manipulation of language - new truths mean new definitions of words that have previously had clear meanings since the Sumerians first wrote them down. Mao and Lenin both understood the importance of indoctrination of the young. The focus on primary school age children’s education is right out of their playbook.
Science, and particularly biology, are useful tools for them only in as much as they can cherry pick data that suit their political purpose- eg in redefining what is meant by biological sex and gender, or as in this instance what constitutes good medical evidence.
Data, facts and words that don’t suit the political narrative are either simply ignored, or refuted with the emotive vigour that extremists always employ. Children harmed by radical interventions will be treated in the same way. Collateral damage is acceptable to fanatics - be it terrorists shooting hostages or eco-nuts defacing works of art, or allowing men in drag to populate women’s spaces even if it means the occasional assault or rape, or academics losing their jobs.
To disagree is to be the enemy. A Nazi even. So a lot of their behaviours are about signalling their zeal and commitment to their fellow collaborators - a bit like the youth in China denouncing their parents or contemporaries during the Cultural Revolution.
In Trans-Wonderland "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
Up until now the trans lobby have been the masters, and those on the Left their willing acolytes.
One hopes the type of scientific rational argument advocated in this article and on this site can win out. Maybe the tide is turning. But in politics truth is often subverted to the cause. I don’t see the Left capitulating on this any time soon.
Yesterday I finished reading Hannah Barnes' book "Time To Think" which chronicles the issues and failures at the GIDS clinic in London UK. The bar for intervention appears to be that if you are referred, you are trans. No real assessment taking place in the vast majority of cases. Between a quarter and a third of staff working there went to their administrations "safeguarding" service to express their concern that children were being harmed. The safeguarding lead reported these concerns and had them consistently dismissed. The CEO of the trust overseeing this clinic seemed unwilling to do anything to destroy the income stream it brought in, and issued press releases trashing the reputation of senior clinicians who authored reports suggesting changes. It got to the point where anyone asking a question was deemed transphobic and advised to seek work elsewhere, whilst many of the unhappy staff referred to the enthusiasts as homophobic, given that they refused to entertain the possibility that some referred kids were actually gay. At the root of it all was ideology, and a far too close link between the advocacy groups like Mermaids, that felt able to request particular interventions, or a change of clinician if a patient felt they weren't being put on the medical pathway quickly enough. Requests that were routinely acceded to. It's worse than a scandal: it's a tragedy.
I believe the book still hasn't found an American publisher, but you can find it on the Canadian or UK Amazon sites. Beware that there are dozens of look-alike titles designed to make you order the wrong book!
Google John Hopkins former chief psychiatrist, Paul McHugh MD.
First read his work before you read the nonsense desperately attempting to refute his scientific observations regarding the dangers of this surgical and chemical intervention
Nicely done, balanced, practical, for those of us with views but also EARS its a starting place for folks to discuss a workable answer
Males have penises. Females have vaginas. You have a mental disorder. “Biologist” lol