I'm an old-school leftist and politically homeless because I'm still a materialist and I believe in free speech and I refuse to submit to the authoritarian postmodernist mind-virus and the stupidity that it creates which is truly mind-boggling. Same people who used to defend teaching evolution in schools are now advocating a belief system that is undoubtedly a form of creationism. It's spreading to other disciplines and it's eroding and discrediting science as such! Obviously our overlords - mainly banks & big tech – have decided that we can do away with science because why else are they backing pseudo-science?!
Very good article and analysis of another progressive "scientific" cudgel, that will be used to beat any counter argument, into obedience and or submissions.
For the propaganda swilling masses - who get their world views and ideologies from outlet like twitter, FB, the view and CNN's expert panels, Boylan's circular musings will be regurgitated in an even more fractured and nonsensical manner - that will then be echoed as settled "science", by the herds of true believers, influencers and politicos.
This ideological war, has no use for logic or reason. It's akin to toy manufacturers successfully pushing the premise, that Santa Clause is real. Providing "proof", in the existence of costumes, reindeer and fat bearded men who "feel" like Santa and even women in the same predicament. The twisting of reality and tangential evidence finally achieves total capture, of those with a deep need for Santa to be real (the children). From there a cultic doctrine and dogma is legitimized by well placed "experts" in arctic studies, zoology, toy manufacturing, sledging, sled manufacturing, myth and lore, meteorology and of course interdimensional and gravitational theory. From there, it's a matter of spreading the new pseudoscientific religion to the mases of children and captured adults, via influencers, beloved media, entertainment and sports figures and then political leaders. The practice of subverting a cohort - no matter how large - with manufactured truths and needs, has no use for reality, logic and historic or provable truths, except as a counter argument, that legitimizes their subversive version.
Unfortunately we have a long road ahead, before these pillars crumble under their own weight. The lgbtq planners will be erecting the third pillar soon, and will use the same arguments to legitimize it - they already are - and you'll be writing articles, about those like Boylan, who explain that the Pedophilic brain represents just another undiscovered sexual orientation path, that must be understood, included and most of all legitimized.
The science does not matter because gender ideology is an arrow in the Maoism quiver to detroy western civilization. We need to broaden the Target/AB boycotts to include every aspect of their revolution against western normalcy.
Excellent discussion of the science, but it's incorrect that gender ideology depends on the first pillar, the idea that sex is a spectrum. Most gender ideologues distinguish between sex and gender (even if they claim that sex is a spectrum), and say that gender is the essential component of gender identity. Gender, they say, ad nauseum, is a "social construct."
There's some plausibility to the claim that gender is a social construct, in the sense that social roles and norms (e.g., fashion, behavior, professions, etc.), which can vary across cultures, are determined by society. What is far less plausible is that "identification with" (whatever that is) this concept of gender is the meaning of standard sex categories (man/woman), and should be the basis for political and social recognition (e.g., sports, bathrooms).
The following despicable claim that Jennifer Boylan, a man who ideates a female persona for himself, IS A MOTHER AND WIFE, is made in one glib, indoctrinated, captured, Stockholm-syndromed paragraph in a puff piece from The Advocate, an LGBTQ+++ alphabet publication. He is a father, a publicity seeker and a man usurping female identity.
"And still, Jennifer Finney Boylan's multi-episode appearance on the Oprah show helped to change the public perception and discourse around trans people. Audiences were used to seeing trans people presented on talk shows as punchlines, a man's attraction to a trans woman could only be accompanied by shame. Jennifer was a wife, a mother, a college professor who'd written a book."
Just for the record -- every one in this forum probably already knows it, but just in case -- Jennifer Finlay Boylan, mentioned often in this article, is a male. He is married to a woman and the father of 2 children with her.
"The second asserts that every human brain contains an unchangeable “gender identity” that is knowable from a very young age,"
Or not. We hear of kids trying on several Genders and changing them several times. Today I'm Genderqueer, tomorrow I might be Twospirit or something else. Who knows?
Thank you for the thoughtful essay. It was very well done. And, from the point of view of a biological psychologist, I fundamentally agree with what you've said. However, if you don't mind, I would like to add some complementary information. One's gender identity does, in fact, have a biological basis (it's a product of brain activity), but — as you point out — that that does not mean that it's permanent or immutable any more than is any other self-perception. Often, this point is overlooked by people on both sides of the conversation: "There is "Biological Evidence for Gender Identity..." but it’s not what you think" https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/there-is-biological-evidence-for
Further, it should be made clear that MRI (or other brain scan) data are only correlational and much too crude to identify patterns that represent gender identity, per se. Additionally, interpretation of any brain scan data is subject to the subjective, and often profoundly naïve and outdated models that people use to assign functions to brain areas. Often these functions are assigned after the fact in order to support the author's original point of view. For instance, claiming that the "tempo-parietal junction" is involved in "body perception" and "out of body experiences" is horribly simplistic and reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how the brain works. It is akin to saying that the "prefrontal cortex" is in charge of "executive functions" (whatever those are), or the amygdala is in charge of "aggression." Consequently, your criticisms of the original argument are correct but could be more pointed. Along that line, one study about which I commented (above), claimed that there were differences in "white matter" between trans- and non-trans brains. The claim, of course, is nonsensical, and when I emailed the lead authors for clarification of their rationale for using that metric, I never received a reply. Oh, well. Again, thank you for a very informative, well-argued essay. Sincerely, Frederick
"...if sex is binary, and no innate and fixed gender identity exists, then one cannot be “mismatched” from one’s sex—and “gender affirming” treatment is unjustified."
I fully agree sex is binary. Gender dysphoria does seem to exist (I refer to the old-fashioned always felt wrong kind, not social contagion) and that would seem to suggest there is such a thing as gender identity. In fact, the proper treatment of GID is to sort out those that are immutable and not aligned with sex, from those that are unstable and likely will come into alignment with maturation. The only treatment we have for "true" GID cases is transition (and I know all we are doing is confirming a mentally ill person's delusion), and those folks seem to do well. It's the tidal wave of social contagion and trendy cases that are going to regret it and should be protected from themselves as children. No one ever changes sex. All anyone can do is disguise their sex and live a life of pretending to be the opposite sex, which might feel more comfortable if you really have "true" gender dysphoria.
I don't think any of us want to deny adults to do what they want to themselves and make their own mistakes. What we must not fail to do is to protect youngsters who cannot make such decisions, especially when we know that 80-90% will desist and be gay adults.
Excellent article. One question I have is whether you have attempted to get it published as a reply article to Boylan in the Washington Post. I know the chances are slim to none, but it’s still worth it. Here your readership is already predisposed to accept your impeccable logic. It’s the casual reader who votes you need to reach.
I used to subscribe to Wapo but no longer. But I wonder if your readership can start a letter writing campaign.
I love Substack. But one disadvantage is that it creates niche readerships. Not useful for changing hearts and minds.
One question that no one has posed (or I may have missed it) is why Boylan et al feel the need for a new gender "ideology" in the first place. Granted, her ideology has no scientific evidential basis, but for a consenting adult there is absolutely nothing wrong (from a personal liberty POV) with saying "I just feel better this way!"
Could it be that the need to construct a new gender ideology stems, partly, from the desire to justify aggressive gender-related "treatments" (e.g. puberty blockers) for people who cannot give consent- like children?
I agree with many of the commenters here that the article is great and clarifying; it answered many of my questions about trans activist arguments. I'd like to see the authors address why some people feel like they're women when they're in male bodies and vice versa--in other words, whether trans people exist. And if there are some people like this, why does "transitioning" relieve the distress around their situation and improve their mental health, by their accounts and by social science research?
Maybe someone in the comments can point out where I may have missed this, though I'm not interested in engaging in polemics.
Doesn't academic integrity require people with strong personal interest to recuse themselves from subjects that stand to directly benefit them? This entire phenomenon appears to be driven by exactly such individuals, and I don't know why anyone hasn't publicly called them on it yet. The only credible theory on transgenderism I have yet encountered is Blanchard's HSTS/AGP dichotomy. Tellingly desperate confabulation to maintain the plausibility of being a woman is actually a symptom of the AGP part... Very Trans-parent. Postpubertal transwomen appear to be all fetishists.
I'm an old-school leftist and politically homeless because I'm still a materialist and I believe in free speech and I refuse to submit to the authoritarian postmodernist mind-virus and the stupidity that it creates which is truly mind-boggling. Same people who used to defend teaching evolution in schools are now advocating a belief system that is undoubtedly a form of creationism. It's spreading to other disciplines and it's eroding and discrediting science as such! Obviously our overlords - mainly banks & big tech – have decided that we can do away with science because why else are they backing pseudo-science?!
Great article.
"Jennifer" Boylan is a male who fathered two children with his long time wife. Raging autogynephile. Just in case someone missed that point.
Here you have JB:
https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/state-of-the-union
Thanks Colin. Your work continually keeps me grounded in reality in a world swirling in delusion. I appreciate everything you do.
Very good article and analysis of another progressive "scientific" cudgel, that will be used to beat any counter argument, into obedience and or submissions.
For the propaganda swilling masses - who get their world views and ideologies from outlet like twitter, FB, the view and CNN's expert panels, Boylan's circular musings will be regurgitated in an even more fractured and nonsensical manner - that will then be echoed as settled "science", by the herds of true believers, influencers and politicos.
This ideological war, has no use for logic or reason. It's akin to toy manufacturers successfully pushing the premise, that Santa Clause is real. Providing "proof", in the existence of costumes, reindeer and fat bearded men who "feel" like Santa and even women in the same predicament. The twisting of reality and tangential evidence finally achieves total capture, of those with a deep need for Santa to be real (the children). From there a cultic doctrine and dogma is legitimized by well placed "experts" in arctic studies, zoology, toy manufacturing, sledging, sled manufacturing, myth and lore, meteorology and of course interdimensional and gravitational theory. From there, it's a matter of spreading the new pseudoscientific religion to the mases of children and captured adults, via influencers, beloved media, entertainment and sports figures and then political leaders. The practice of subverting a cohort - no matter how large - with manufactured truths and needs, has no use for reality, logic and historic or provable truths, except as a counter argument, that legitimizes their subversive version.
Unfortunately we have a long road ahead, before these pillars crumble under their own weight. The lgbtq planners will be erecting the third pillar soon, and will use the same arguments to legitimize it - they already are - and you'll be writing articles, about those like Boylan, who explain that the Pedophilic brain represents just another undiscovered sexual orientation path, that must be understood, included and most of all legitimized.
The science does not matter because gender ideology is an arrow in the Maoism quiver to detroy western civilization. We need to broaden the Target/AB boycotts to include every aspect of their revolution against western normalcy.
Excellent discussion of the science, but it's incorrect that gender ideology depends on the first pillar, the idea that sex is a spectrum. Most gender ideologues distinguish between sex and gender (even if they claim that sex is a spectrum), and say that gender is the essential component of gender identity. Gender, they say, ad nauseum, is a "social construct."
There's some plausibility to the claim that gender is a social construct, in the sense that social roles and norms (e.g., fashion, behavior, professions, etc.), which can vary across cultures, are determined by society. What is far less plausible is that "identification with" (whatever that is) this concept of gender is the meaning of standard sex categories (man/woman), and should be the basis for political and social recognition (e.g., sports, bathrooms).
The following despicable claim that Jennifer Boylan, a man who ideates a female persona for himself, IS A MOTHER AND WIFE, is made in one glib, indoctrinated, captured, Stockholm-syndromed paragraph in a puff piece from The Advocate, an LGBTQ+++ alphabet publication. He is a father, a publicity seeker and a man usurping female identity.
"And still, Jennifer Finney Boylan's multi-episode appearance on the Oprah show helped to change the public perception and discourse around trans people. Audiences were used to seeing trans people presented on talk shows as punchlines, a man's attraction to a trans woman could only be accompanied by shame. Jennifer was a wife, a mother, a college professor who'd written a book."
Just for the record -- every one in this forum probably already knows it, but just in case -- Jennifer Finlay Boylan, mentioned often in this article, is a male. He is married to a woman and the father of 2 children with her.
"The second asserts that every human brain contains an unchangeable “gender identity” that is knowable from a very young age,"
Or not. We hear of kids trying on several Genders and changing them several times. Today I'm Genderqueer, tomorrow I might be Twospirit or something else. Who knows?
Thank you for the thoughtful essay. It was very well done. And, from the point of view of a biological psychologist, I fundamentally agree with what you've said. However, if you don't mind, I would like to add some complementary information. One's gender identity does, in fact, have a biological basis (it's a product of brain activity), but — as you point out — that that does not mean that it's permanent or immutable any more than is any other self-perception. Often, this point is overlooked by people on both sides of the conversation: "There is "Biological Evidence for Gender Identity..." but it’s not what you think" https://everythingisbiology.substack.com/p/there-is-biological-evidence-for
Further, it should be made clear that MRI (or other brain scan) data are only correlational and much too crude to identify patterns that represent gender identity, per se. Additionally, interpretation of any brain scan data is subject to the subjective, and often profoundly naïve and outdated models that people use to assign functions to brain areas. Often these functions are assigned after the fact in order to support the author's original point of view. For instance, claiming that the "tempo-parietal junction" is involved in "body perception" and "out of body experiences" is horribly simplistic and reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how the brain works. It is akin to saying that the "prefrontal cortex" is in charge of "executive functions" (whatever those are), or the amygdala is in charge of "aggression." Consequently, your criticisms of the original argument are correct but could be more pointed. Along that line, one study about which I commented (above), claimed that there were differences in "white matter" between trans- and non-trans brains. The claim, of course, is nonsensical, and when I emailed the lead authors for clarification of their rationale for using that metric, I never received a reply. Oh, well. Again, thank you for a very informative, well-argued essay. Sincerely, Frederick
I think there's a bit of woolly thinking here:
"...if sex is binary, and no innate and fixed gender identity exists, then one cannot be “mismatched” from one’s sex—and “gender affirming” treatment is unjustified."
I fully agree sex is binary. Gender dysphoria does seem to exist (I refer to the old-fashioned always felt wrong kind, not social contagion) and that would seem to suggest there is such a thing as gender identity. In fact, the proper treatment of GID is to sort out those that are immutable and not aligned with sex, from those that are unstable and likely will come into alignment with maturation. The only treatment we have for "true" GID cases is transition (and I know all we are doing is confirming a mentally ill person's delusion), and those folks seem to do well. It's the tidal wave of social contagion and trendy cases that are going to regret it and should be protected from themselves as children. No one ever changes sex. All anyone can do is disguise their sex and live a life of pretending to be the opposite sex, which might feel more comfortable if you really have "true" gender dysphoria.
I don't think any of us want to deny adults to do what they want to themselves and make their own mistakes. What we must not fail to do is to protect youngsters who cannot make such decisions, especially when we know that 80-90% will desist and be gay adults.
Excellent article. One question I have is whether you have attempted to get it published as a reply article to Boylan in the Washington Post. I know the chances are slim to none, but it’s still worth it. Here your readership is already predisposed to accept your impeccable logic. It’s the casual reader who votes you need to reach.
I used to subscribe to Wapo but no longer. But I wonder if your readership can start a letter writing campaign.
I love Substack. But one disadvantage is that it creates niche readerships. Not useful for changing hearts and minds.
"Belief" <--- What is the science of belief and how does it bear on gender beliefs? Thanks for this essay.
One question that no one has posed (or I may have missed it) is why Boylan et al feel the need for a new gender "ideology" in the first place. Granted, her ideology has no scientific evidential basis, but for a consenting adult there is absolutely nothing wrong (from a personal liberty POV) with saying "I just feel better this way!"
Could it be that the need to construct a new gender ideology stems, partly, from the desire to justify aggressive gender-related "treatments" (e.g. puberty blockers) for people who cannot give consent- like children?
I agree with many of the commenters here that the article is great and clarifying; it answered many of my questions about trans activist arguments. I'd like to see the authors address why some people feel like they're women when they're in male bodies and vice versa--in other words, whether trans people exist. And if there are some people like this, why does "transitioning" relieve the distress around their situation and improve their mental health, by their accounts and by social science research?
Maybe someone in the comments can point out where I may have missed this, though I'm not interested in engaging in polemics.
Doesn't academic integrity require people with strong personal interest to recuse themselves from subjects that stand to directly benefit them? This entire phenomenon appears to be driven by exactly such individuals, and I don't know why anyone hasn't publicly called them on it yet. The only credible theory on transgenderism I have yet encountered is Blanchard's HSTS/AGP dichotomy. Tellingly desperate confabulation to maintain the plausibility of being a woman is actually a symptom of the AGP part... Very Trans-parent. Postpubertal transwomen appear to be all fetishists.