If it's not contributing to the conversation and is simply meant to rile someone up, I will delete it. Just have cordial interactions. I'm not asking for a lot.
In what the late Saddam Hussein once dubbed “the great Satan,” roughly two-thirds of the United States enlisted military corps is white . . . The fat, bulbous U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin once confirmed in a 93-2 vote of the U.S. Senate, immediately embarked on a whirlwind media tour of duty, telling the pseudo-secular sycophants in the state-controlled tabloid press and state-controlled television talk show circuit about how the U.S. Army is full of bad racist white men.
Senior Defense Department leaders celebrating yet another Pride Month at the Pentagon sounding the alarm about the rising number of state laws they say target the LGBTQ+ community, warned the trend is hurting the feelings of the armed forces . . . “LGBTQ plus and other diverse communities are under attack, just because they are different. Hate for hate’s sake,” said Gil Cisneros, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for personnel and readiness, who also serves as DoD’s chief diversity and inclusion officer.
And now the U.S. Army is doing ads begging for more young white males? What happened?
Even with a full-on declaration of war from Congress, and even if Gavin Newsome could be cheated into the Oval Office by ZOG somehow, with Globohomo diversity brigades going door-to-door looking to impress American children into military service, they will be met with armed, well-trained opposition, the invasion at the Southern border is going full tilt, and the drugs are flowing in like never before.
Get ready for it . . . the fat old devil worshipping fags on Capitol Hill, on Wall Street, in Whitehall, and in Brussels are in no shape to fight a war themselves, and most Americans are armed to the teeth with their own guns . . . NATO hates heterosexual white men . . . they said so themselves . . .
If "woman" is a gender -- i.e., anyone who looks like an adult human female (sex), or exhibits any traits typical of them -- then Dawn, and many transwomen in a similar boat, may have some justification for their claims. Particularly as many adult human females (sex) are rather atypical, not to mention that -- on the basis of standard biological definitions -- many adult human XXers don't qualify as female (sex) either. But if the category is defined as a sex -- adult human female (sex) -- then they don't.
Largely why I've argued that the whole debate over binary-vs-spectrum is something of a red herring, a rather pointless Lilliputian civil war over egg (ova) cracking protocols. If it were just a matter of which definition was most useful in biological applications then one would think reason would prevail.
Although there are apparently many other fractious debates in biology that have nothing to do with transgenderism. Some of which are because, according to a Belgian virologist, the issues "lie at the interface between [the biology] and areas of philosophy such as logic, ontology and epistemology which unfortunately are rarely taught in university curricula followed by science students":
But the issue -- the bottom line, so to speak -- seems more one of whether vagina-havers are entitled to spaces from which penis-havers are excluded -- or reasonable facsimiles in both cases. Redefining "woman" -- e.g., "adult human vagina-haver (or reasonable facsimiles thereof)" -- in light of those facts may be the most effective way off the horns of a rather serious social dilemma.
But just as a point of reference, are "fuck offs" not beyond the Pale? 🙄
May 10, 2023·edited May 10, 2023Liked by Colin Wright
As an online gamer, this is very true. The online gamers who have stable lives and families are also inherently more stable and happy in the game. These games are big social outlets and the most stable ones cause the least amount of friction online. There are a LOT of trans people in those spaces and they conflict enormously with the more stable personalities. At the very least, that has been my personal experience.
The prevalence of online trans people is definitely partially due to the escapism and avatar-ism it allows. The difference is that if you're stable and happy IRL, you'll be stable and happy in the game regardless. With the reality denying crowd, it becomes a lot more complicated and their happiness and stability hinges on factors that are almost entirely out of their control, such as others' enabling them or affirming them.
Obviously this is anecdotal but I've been a part of a LOT of MMOs and online games for the past 20 years and it is as true now as it was in 2003. My life has changed (I have a daughter now and a wife) but the online community is basically the same.
I could write a whole article about this stuff. It's one of my primary hobbies and the space itself has gotten completely out of hand in the past 10 years. There's like a "secret society" (they're present in nearly any MMO) of people who hold to reality, who stay quiet out of fear of being completely silenced or ostracized. It's extensive.
My experience (or rather, my son's) is somewhat similar. As an adolescent (pre-covid), he fell into the world of online gaming, alongside using Discord. Not long after, he 'suddenly' (seriously, it seemed like overnight) had ROGD. Come to find out he was chatting with several 'trans' people on there, who evidently convinced him he too was trans. Fortunately, all is back to normal now (a long sordid story, as you can imagine), but those few years after were a nightmare for our family.
It's 100% social (well, some fringe cases may not be, but you get the idea). There are plenty of normal people playing these games. But, just like in real life, they're more quiet and less outspoken. Normal people don't feel an intense need for "normie validation".
If he learned anything, like I did, is that you spot warning flags early (once you learn what those flags are) and you stay TF away from those kind of people. They're nothing but drama and trouble. Most people just want to play a game after work and not deal with identity politics drama, but "most people" are quiet and don't go pushing their normalness onto others aggressively.
The Reality Deniers, as I call them, truly hate CoD and competitive, war-game style FPSes because they appeal to fairly universal "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT" instincts that are traditionally masculine. CoD games are competitive and care primarily about results and not feelings.
As you can see, this contradicts a lot of their sacred cows.
Entire articles have been written about how "far right" the FPS scene is and how "toxic" and competitive it is. It's very revealing, because in my opinion it's no more or less toxic than any other environment. It's just VERY results oriented. K/D ratios are king and nothing else but skill suffices.
Yeah, didn't work out too well the last time we tried it - oh, some 39 years ago ... 😉🙂
Reminds me of Pascal's:
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
Something that seems to characterize far too many on both, on all sides, of virtually any issue. Something that Katherine Brodsky tackles in her "The Rise of the Right Wing Woke":
Under this logic sports, reading, fishing, woodworking, and anything else that's recreational could be banned. It's easy to get lost in a hobby if you lack self regulation.
Normal people should not be punished for the excesses of a lazy few. I'll leave it at that.
Well yes, I can see your point. But while in basic you're rather thoroughly broken of various habits. I know it sounds like a cliche, but you realize that you have more power over yourself than you thought. This knowledge stays with you, whether or not you then proceed to cultivate military-compatible compulsions.
No, not 'indoctrination' so much as learning a contextual value, no different from a surgeon or nuclear technician abiding by strict protocols. Outside the military context, the only lasting impact is a greater capacity for self-discipline, as well as a greater ability to get over oneself. Traits all adults should have.
Well now you've gone from saying that military training "entails indoctrination in obedience" to "they get fat, alcoholic, slovenly..."
"This is well-known."
No, it isn't. In fact, kinda debatable. Here are some studies on the effects of military training on personality and development (setting aside issues related to combat). Two are positive, one is mixed...
Hah since when has PE not been compulsory? I remember well those thursday afternoons in the mud or driving sleet cross country running or playing rugby, face stinging from the ice hitting it, shivering and mud soaked.
It's not like anyone get's a choice to do PE, everyone in school has to do it.
Good grief, "opt out"? Why are children given say so over their day in school when they can hardly be best judges of what schooling makes an effective citizen - which is the purpose of school.
A fascinating read with valuable insights into the disembodied, fantastic inner reality of "gender-dysphoric" youth. I recognized the similarities with disordered personalities -- especially around obscuring language and an inability to countenance painful emotions -- from having dated a person with borderline personality disorder. I can say from that experience that you are doing difficult work, which I'm sure often feels futile. Thanks so much for sharing your expertise. I am linking to this from my blog, with full credit to RLS and the author.
May 10, 2023Liked by Joseph Burgo, Ph.D., Colin Wright
A great article. As pointed out before you can’t reason somebody out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. And the conclusion is sadly true. It’s about reason versus power and sadly the loudest voices are with the latter.
"How are we to heal a disordered society such as ours?"
You crack down hard. You do it through strong laws against the lie that is “transgenderism” in all its forms. No “affirmative care.” No puberty blockers. No wrong sex hormones. No double mastectomies, phalloplasties, or vaginoplaties. No tracheal shaves or shoulder reductions. No drag queen story hours or drag shows. No men in woman’s sports teams, locker rooms, spas, bathrooms, shelters, jails, or prisons. No “queer/nonbinary” clubs or books in schools. You kick the Democrats out of office and vote for only those candidates who sign a pledge to oppose “gender” nonsense.
Yes. I read (and understood) the posting guidelines before I posted my comments. The gist of the posting guidelines is that we not insult other commenters. We are not forbidden from expressing strong opinions about the topic at hand which is the lie that is "transgenderism."
I strongly disagree about it being harmless - Melbourne is currently having the dragQ phenomenon happen here and I am aghast why city councils are doing this despite it clearly being unpopular with the vast majority - even those who aren't "woke" to the gender war. This is all about two thigs: normalizing deviance to children who will grow up accepting non-normative sexual behaviour (ie grooming); and giving the FU to the public. "We are doing it whether you like it or not and there is nothing you can do about it" - it is about visibly rubbing the public's nose in it. How these people expect to get reelected I don't know.
I don't want to enter a long-running argument with you because I'm actually enjoying the conversation...
But there are two incongruent claims you've made: drag exposure to children isn't harmful (but transvestites are harmful to be around); the trans threat is deadly serious (but drag performances are clearly being used as a means of normalising transgenderism). These are inconsistent positions.
If you are not yet aware of this there have already been several documented instances of sexual offenders being unmasked as the drag performers who were hired for these shows.
Sexualizing children is not harmful? Have you seen the story hour of a grown man in a dress teaching children how to twerk? It’s adult entertainment, I went to a drag club for my bachelorette party!
There will always be ways for the vast majority of American women to secure a safe abortion, even if they have to cross the country or travel to a different country to do so. There are also several effective ways to prevent pregnancy, including pills, vaginal rings, patches, diaphrams, IUDs, condoms, and getting one's tubes tied or vasectomies. I, for one, am not willing to suck up to the totalitarian "transgender" propaganda now shoved down the throats of children, women, and men 24/7 just to preserve abortion rights.
Planned Parenthood, which used to stand up for women is now the second largest provider of puberty blockers and wrong sex hormones. to children and teenagers of both sexes. Planned Parenthood could have stuck to their knitting. But they allowed themselves to be captured by the dark money of the billionaire tranny mob -- Pritzker, Stryker, et al. They spell evil with a capital E.
So you can go right ahead and cast your vote for Biden. I voted for him in 2020, but I will never vote for that old goat again. On his first day in office, his very first day in office, he signed a bill requiring all companies that do business with the federal government to allow their employees to self declare themselves the opposite sex. And from this we got the world's first "female" four star admiral and assistant secretary of health, Dr." Rachel" Levine and also the luggage stealing Sam Brinton who was plucked from drag show obscurity to head our nation's nuclear waste disposal program. I don't even want to imagine what "trans" horrors we would see during Biden's second term.
Today, the Democrats are pushing for censorship with a captital C. And from that, springs totalitarianism with a capital T. But don't take my word for it. Just ask Matt Taibbi about the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board. It's currently on "pause." But the moment old Joe decides to reactivate it, watch out.
And, mind you, we're not talking about removing a few kinky books from the school library -- books that teach 12 year old boys how to perform lewd and lascivious sex acts with their friends and barnyard animals. We're talking subjecting everyone who criticizes the government in any way to censorship and deplatforming. Similar to Canada's new law, C11 which adds in fines and prison terms for violators. And in the age of AI and ChatGPT-4. That's the kiss of death for democracy.
Less than a minute after I posted my response, I came across this choice tidbit that was just posted on Wired. It begins: "The UK’s Secretive Web Surveillance Program Is Ramping Up -- A government effort to collect people’s internet records is moving beyond its test phase, but many details remain hidden from public view." George Orwell would be so proud.
May 10, 2023Liked by Joseph Burgo, Ph.D., Colin Wright
This is disconcerting. There are many of us in the "gender"critical" world who happily accept an adult's right to bodily autonomy. Many of us accept the notion of gender dysphoria as a real condition that can be helped with a variety of medical interventions by consenting adults. We are happy to use "preferred pronouns" with adults. We also have concerns about social contagion, medicalization of children, and fairness in sports, and some sex segregated spaces. Name calling and vilifying trans identified adults does not support that cause.
Thank you, Tom, this is somewhat similar where I land. I have no political issues when adults transition and I think it is basic politeness to use preferred pronouns. And if people consider themselves nonbinary then I’m going to identify them as they prefer to be identified. I, too, believe gender dysphoria is real and yes, also believe it is currently a social contagion that harms children.
I am fine with drag queen story times in the public library or private venues, as long as a legal guardian is accompanying. I don’t think they belong in the public school system. I don’t think children need to be taught gender identity in grade school (1-6 grade). I differ in that I’m convinced there are biologically two genders (intersex is not its own gender) but I have no issue with older students having that discussion due to the reality of this time we’re living in.
I’m no expert but I trust Colin, Jesse and many others who clearly show that gender affirming care for children is not strongly supported by science as activists would have you believe and that we’re at risk of allowing real harm to come to children for something they will ultimately regret. However, I don’t think politics is necessarily the right place to debate these issues, instead it really has to be a societal, cultural and scientific discussion. That said, I’m old enough to observe that culture and social pressure influences science, and political choices are made on what is to be peer-reviewed and published so minority/dissenting opinions must be allowed space to flourish in this discussion ... and no, I don’t think activists want those voices to be heard.
And others of us are not "happy to" use "preferred pronouns." We are also not "happy" about adults harming themselves in a futile effort to address a mental problem by cutting the body up. We are not required to be "happy" about this to be good people. We are not required to "support this" to be actually caring people with a morally understandable point of view.
Like you, Tom, we are most concerned with what's being done to children. For people like me, it is so far beyond unacceptable there is no debate. We, I, recognize transing children for what it is: extreme, horror-movie-level child abuse.
Not enthusiastically "supporting" self-mortification, not "respecting" "pronouns" is neither vilification, nor is it name-calling. Nor is it disrespect, nor is it "abuse."
I hope people with your point of view will be able to understand this a little better, because there are many concerns that people like you, and people like me, share in common.
Would you say teens of the sort you described gravitate towards puberty blockers in order to exert power/control over their own biological development?
Thomas Sowell doesn't have it right. It's actually the Enlightenment Liberal (as in "Liberal Democracy", not the political stance) position, held by both many conservative Republicans and Liberal Democrats. Most scientists are, as has been noted, Liberal. A few have gone Progressive and compromised their credibility and published pseudoscientific articles on the "Sex Spectrum", but most recognize postmodern views of the world as contradictory to a scientific worldview. The problem is, thatzmany liberals have been sucked in by the claims of Gender Theory that what they are about represents a more socially just version of the world. My mission at the moment is to explain what Gender Theory is and where it comes from -- that is, from the minds of academic philosophers who have no investment in facts whatsoever. And to encourage people to speak up! People are afraid of losing their jobs, and their indoctrinated friends. Please don't say that you represent the "conservative viewpoint". If we're going to fight this, we need to do it together. This isn't a political issue. It's about the fundamental nature of truth, and why it matters that it not defined by fiat by Judith Butler, who thinks she knows better than science, reason, and God, the nature of reality.
May 11, 2023·edited May 11, 2023Liked by Colin Wright
The article is wonderful, and I was excited to see an article by a psychologist! I also am a psychologist, and have been wanting to talk with colleagues about what diagnostic concepts apply to transgender clients, across the age range. My clinical experience with transgender clients has been with adults, mostly male.
I also work with adolescents, but haven't positioned myself as a gender therapist for adolescents. Even so, I see an increasing number of young women who at some point suddenly tell me that they have changed their gender identities and frequently also their names. It appears to be normal now, at least in my city, for female high school and college students to announce that they are "non-binary." It hasn't been normal for long, and I don't believe that it is the same phenomenon as whatever was going on with transgender people before the social media craze started up. Prior to the trans epidemic, however, we had the eating disorder epidemic, and those patients were from the same demographic: young white women from affluent families. Social media didn't exist then, but the clients generally were similarly focused on "ideal" images of girls and women presented in magazines and movies. Many clinicians who specialized in treating people with eating disorders thought that the clients were responding primarily to social pressure on women to be thin, which definitely was the message being sent by the magazines.
Many of the women with bulimia and anorexia nervosa did, however, turn out to have significant psychiatric problems, including dissociation from their bodies as a primary problem. They are also often described as presenting narcissistic, borderline and obsessive-compulsive patterns of behavior. The families of these clients in my experience also presented obvious and serious family dysfunction and oddities, such as marked emotional detachment from each other. In my opinion, all of these behaviors tend to get established initially in the family, and to be multigenerational in duration.
Is it possible that a high percentage of the current "trans fad" clients, as opposed to the historic trans clients (whatever they were like), have similar psychiatric problems to the 1980's eating disorder clients as well as coming from the same demographic? I have been perplexed, because it seems like there are a great many more of the trans fad clients than there were of the eating disorder clients, (and that was major)!
Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues have made a strong empirical case that increased self-reported depression and anxiety in young women is related to the amount of time they spend on social media. This does suggest that the epidemic of distress plus performative identity fluidity is situational. Christopher Rufo has suggested, based on his observations of colleges in Florida and elsewhere, that the woke culture on these campuses reinforces the behaviors associated with borderline personality disorder. This perspective is consistent with the theory that the current mental health crisis among young women is a reaction to pressure from their social milieu.
I wonder, however, if the narcissistic nature of social media experience is separate from the pre-existing personalities of the young people who create much of their own culture there. Is it possible that the woke movement is not so much a pre-planned Marxist movement as it is a dramatic increase in the rate of pathological narcissism in U.S. culture? Either of these options is clearly terrible, but I would prefer the Marxism explanation, given a choice.
It was great to read an article that addressed these issues! I would love to see more from Dr. Burgo and others!
I think undiagnosed autism in females is quite possibly the link between these cohorts, or one of them. Autistic females seem particularly susceptible to social contagion; it used to be eating disorders, and it's currently trans.
"High-functioning" autism in females is apparently not uncommonly misdiagnosed as BPD. Obsessive-compulsive behaviours, dissociation from the body, and emotional detachment all fit the picture too.
I was diagnosed with ASD last year at 34, and it's a bit of a special interest of mine. The overlap of ASD with the new adolescent female trans cohort is fascinating and concerning.
I think autism is a vastly overused diagnostic label. In general, I think diagnosis is overrated. What does a symptom mean? What purpose does it serve? What are the defensive structures inherent in autism? Just slapping a label on it does nothing, as if it's an incurable disease.
It's a neurodevelopmental difference you're born with. A different way of processing information, sensing, relating to your body, and particularly communicating. There are various neurological differences that occur at a greater rate in autistic people, such as synaesthesia, difficulty with left and right and spatial awareness. Social communication with non-autistic people is not intuitive. I've spent my life being read and interpreted differently than intended, having difficulty interpreting others' facial expressions, and taking things literally.
I don't have the time nor expertise to answer your questions satisfactorily, of course.
I don't agree that it's overused, given the low rates of diagnosis. It may muddy the waters now that it's an umbrella term and people who would have been Asperger's, like me, are under the ASD umbrella.
Yes, it is "incurable", but I don't think it's considered a disease or a psychiatric condition like those you work with. It's more akin to dyslexia and Sensory Processing Disorder, in that the approach would be occupational therapy. But the likelihood for young people struggling with these differences to develop comorbid conditions such as social anxiety can complicate treatment.
I don't really agree with the dismissive take of "slapping a label on it" either. I have no words to describe how life-changing it is to finally understand my difficulties and differences with functioning and be able to work with my brain and abilities rather than against them. My diagnosis has helped with my anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and ability to meet my needs and organise myself on a daily basis. It's been a lifetime of self-blame to a process of understanding and accepting myself and improved functioning.
I propose that quality psychotherapy together with movement such as in Alexander body work and Feldenkrais physical therapy would help "identity-confused" patients, whether teens or adults. When my former husband "transitioned" I witnessed his increasingly vacant focus, lack of emotion (outside of rage, which became more frequent) and growing distance from his physicality. We trans widows often observe our former spouses detach from their sexed, physical self. I've designed movement for stress relief, and will always question the "sexologists" in their cult of inauthenticity.
It has only been in the last year that I have taken a deep interest and a concerted reading dive into this topic area. As a retired 71 year old clinical social worker who was primarily working as a therapist prior to retirement - I find your observations and your analysis to be the most insightful and the most plausible I have yet encountered in helping explain what is taking place for these young people. The generation nature (primarily Gen-Z) - linked to this phenomenon suggest a direct connection to the mass use of smart phones and social media in that generation beginning around 2012 - which is also when large scale meta-data show mental health began to seriously go off the rails for those young people, with depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation and self-harm dramatically increasing in subsequent years. Those sorts of mental health issues are alarming enough, but a future society in which large numbers of people fit mental and behavioral criteria for narcissism and borderline personality traits sounds completely disastrous when contemplated at a larger societal level.
Please make sure your comments are civil. Any comments hurling insults or using unnecessarily inflammatory language will be removed. Thank you!
You seriously think my "lady" comment was a case of "hurling insults" or "using unnecessarily inflammatory language"? 🙄
If it's not contributing to the conversation and is simply meant to rile someone up, I will delete it. Just have cordial interactions. I'm not asking for a lot.
In what the late Saddam Hussein once dubbed “the great Satan,” roughly two-thirds of the United States enlisted military corps is white . . . The fat, bulbous U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin once confirmed in a 93-2 vote of the U.S. Senate, immediately embarked on a whirlwind media tour of duty, telling the pseudo-secular sycophants in the state-controlled tabloid press and state-controlled television talk show circuit about how the U.S. Army is full of bad racist white men.
Senior Defense Department leaders celebrating yet another Pride Month at the Pentagon sounding the alarm about the rising number of state laws they say target the LGBTQ+ community, warned the trend is hurting the feelings of the armed forces . . . “LGBTQ plus and other diverse communities are under attack, just because they are different. Hate for hate’s sake,” said Gil Cisneros, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for personnel and readiness, who also serves as DoD’s chief diversity and inclusion officer.
And now the U.S. Army is doing ads begging for more young white males? What happened?
Even with a full-on declaration of war from Congress, and even if Gavin Newsome could be cheated into the Oval Office by ZOG somehow, with Globohomo diversity brigades going door-to-door looking to impress American children into military service, they will be met with armed, well-trained opposition, the invasion at the Southern border is going full tilt, and the drugs are flowing in like never before.
Get ready for it . . . the fat old devil worshipping fags on Capitol Hill, on Wall Street, in Whitehall, and in Brussels are in no shape to fight a war themselves, and most Americans are armed to the teeth with their own guns . . . NATO hates heterosexual white men . . . they said so themselves . . .
https://cwspangle.substack.com/i/138320669/nato-an-anti-white-and-anti-family-institution
Kind of the crux of the matter though, ain't it?
If "woman" is a gender -- i.e., anyone who looks like an adult human female (sex), or exhibits any traits typical of them -- then Dawn, and many transwomen in a similar boat, may have some justification for their claims. Particularly as many adult human females (sex) are rather atypical, not to mention that -- on the basis of standard biological definitions -- many adult human XXers don't qualify as female (sex) either. But if the category is defined as a sex -- adult human female (sex) -- then they don't.
Largely why I've argued that the whole debate over binary-vs-spectrum is something of a red herring, a rather pointless Lilliputian civil war over egg (ova) cracking protocols. If it were just a matter of which definition was most useful in biological applications then one would think reason would prevail.
Although there are apparently many other fractious debates in biology that have nothing to do with transgenderism. Some of which are because, according to a Belgian virologist, the issues "lie at the interface between [the biology] and areas of philosophy such as logic, ontology and epistemology which unfortunately are rarely taught in university curricula followed by science students":
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309889266_Classes_taxa_and_categories_in_hierarchical_virus_classification_a_review_of_current_debates_on_definitions_and_names_of_virus_species
But the issue -- the bottom line, so to speak -- seems more one of whether vagina-havers are entitled to spaces from which penis-havers are excluded -- or reasonable facsimiles in both cases. Redefining "woman" -- e.g., "adult human vagina-haver (or reasonable facsimiles thereof)" -- in light of those facts may be the most effective way off the horns of a rather serious social dilemma.
But just as a point of reference, are "fuck offs" not beyond the Pale? 🙄
https://www.realityslaststand.com/p/living-in-an-as-if-world/comment/15858958
What a brilliant essay. So thoughtful and incisive.
Enough of us believe in reality and we must be determined to ensure it prevails.
Thank you, Helen.
As an online gamer, this is very true. The online gamers who have stable lives and families are also inherently more stable and happy in the game. These games are big social outlets and the most stable ones cause the least amount of friction online. There are a LOT of trans people in those spaces and they conflict enormously with the more stable personalities. At the very least, that has been my personal experience.
The prevalence of online trans people is definitely partially due to the escapism and avatar-ism it allows. The difference is that if you're stable and happy IRL, you'll be stable and happy in the game regardless. With the reality denying crowd, it becomes a lot more complicated and their happiness and stability hinges on factors that are almost entirely out of their control, such as others' enabling them or affirming them.
Obviously this is anecdotal but I've been a part of a LOT of MMOs and online games for the past 20 years and it is as true now as it was in 2003. My life has changed (I have a daughter now and a wife) but the online community is basically the same.
What you say about the number of trans people online and the trouble they cause is fascinating to me. I shouldn't be surprised. Thanks.
I could write a whole article about this stuff. It's one of my primary hobbies and the space itself has gotten completely out of hand in the past 10 years. There's like a "secret society" (they're present in nearly any MMO) of people who hold to reality, who stay quiet out of fear of being completely silenced or ostracized. It's extensive.
You should write that article. I for one would love to read it.
As an offline gamer, I would be very interested to read more about your experiences in MMOs over the years
I’m just a visitor, but I would be very interested in such an article.
My experience (or rather, my son's) is somewhat similar. As an adolescent (pre-covid), he fell into the world of online gaming, alongside using Discord. Not long after, he 'suddenly' (seriously, it seemed like overnight) had ROGD. Come to find out he was chatting with several 'trans' people on there, who evidently convinced him he too was trans. Fortunately, all is back to normal now (a long sordid story, as you can imagine), but those few years after were a nightmare for our family.
It's 100% social (well, some fringe cases may not be, but you get the idea). There are plenty of normal people playing these games. But, just like in real life, they're more quiet and less outspoken. Normal people don't feel an intense need for "normie validation".
If he learned anything, like I did, is that you spot warning flags early (once you learn what those flags are) and you stay TF away from those kind of people. They're nothing but drama and trouble. Most people just want to play a game after work and not deal with identity politics drama, but "most people" are quiet and don't go pushing their normalness onto others aggressively.
One thing I like about CoD - the lobby discourse takes no prisoners.
The Reality Deniers, as I call them, truly hate CoD and competitive, war-game style FPSes because they appeal to fairly universal "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT" instincts that are traditionally masculine. CoD games are competitive and care primarily about results and not feelings.
As you can see, this contradicts a lot of their sacred cows.
Entire articles have been written about how "far right" the FPS scene is and how "toxic" and competitive it is. It's very revealing, because in my opinion it's no more or less toxic than any other environment. It's just VERY results oriented. K/D ratios are king and nothing else but skill suffices.
What you describe makes perfect sense. I guess we should rid the FPS scene of toxic masculinity and put a stop to all this male competitiveness.
It's a good thing we don't allow others to legislate what we do when we come home from work.
Yeah, didn't work out too well the last time we tried it - oh, some 39 years ago ... 😉🙂
Reminds me of Pascal's:
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
Something that seems to characterize far too many on both, on all sides, of virtually any issue. Something that Katherine Brodsky tackles in her "The Rise of the Right Wing Woke":
https://randomminds.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-the-right-wing-woke
Canons (sic) to the Left of us, canons (sic) to the Right ...
Under this logic sports, reading, fishing, woodworking, and anything else that's recreational could be banned. It's easy to get lost in a hobby if you lack self regulation.
Normal people should not be punished for the excesses of a lazy few. I'll leave it at that.
I wonder if compulsory PE might help such people.
It's a good thought. I advise the parents of gender-distressed kids to get them off their screens and doing something physical.
ECT -- electro-conculsive shock therapy -- might be more useful...
Followed by 2 years mandatory military service. (I've long suspected that it would help with other things, like e.g. obsessive compulsive disorder.)
I don’t want to do anything complicated. I just want people to get up and move around for 40 minutes. It might help.
Military training has the potential to turn OCD up to 11.
Well yes, I can see your point. But while in basic you're rather thoroughly broken of various habits. I know it sounds like a cliche, but you realize that you have more power over yourself than you thought. This knowledge stays with you, whether or not you then proceed to cultivate military-compatible compulsions.
No, not 'indoctrination' so much as learning a contextual value, no different from a surgeon or nuclear technician abiding by strict protocols. Outside the military context, the only lasting impact is a greater capacity for self-discipline, as well as a greater ability to get over oneself. Traits all adults should have.
Well now you've gone from saying that military training "entails indoctrination in obedience" to "they get fat, alcoholic, slovenly..."
"This is well-known."
No, it isn't. In fact, kinda debatable. Here are some studies on the effects of military training on personality and development (setting aside issues related to combat). Two are positive, one is mixed...
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34079481/
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2018-10052-012
https://scienceblog.com/52184/military-service-changes-personality/
"...the cost of being under the control of people 20 points dumber..."
Yes, and I mentioned: "...a greater ability to get over oneself." The ‘cost’ you worry about is only to one’s ego.
Overall, your objection really seems to be about military * people, * whom you evidently view as beneath you...
https://www.ranker.com/list/celebrities-who-were-in-the-military/celebrity-lists
So is gym class, I assume.
So now I could opt out on the grounds that PE is harmful? Awesome!
Exactly what popped into my mind. This is why we have high school football for boys and swimming and track for girls
Hah since when has PE not been compulsory? I remember well those thursday afternoons in the mud or driving sleet cross country running or playing rugby, face stinging from the ice hitting it, shivering and mud soaked.
It's not like anyone get's a choice to do PE, everyone in school has to do it.
Not here in Seattle. If I remember correctly kids can opt out of it now because they don't want to shower with other kids or they just don't want to.
Good grief, "opt out"? Why are children given say so over their day in school when they can hardly be best judges of what schooling makes an effective citizen - which is the purpose of school.
If you’re in the Band-that gives you your PE credit, so gym is then optional
Things have changed since you and I were in school.
A fascinating read with valuable insights into the disembodied, fantastic inner reality of "gender-dysphoric" youth. I recognized the similarities with disordered personalities -- especially around obscuring language and an inability to countenance painful emotions -- from having dated a person with borderline personality disorder. I can say from that experience that you are doing difficult work, which I'm sure often feels futile. Thanks so much for sharing your expertise. I am linking to this from my blog, with full credit to RLS and the author.
Thanks, Cate. It's great that people are resonating with what I've described. And thanks for linking.
A great article. As pointed out before you can’t reason somebody out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. And the conclusion is sadly true. It’s about reason versus power and sadly the loudest voices are with the latter.
"How are we to heal a disordered society such as ours?"
You crack down hard. You do it through strong laws against the lie that is “transgenderism” in all its forms. No “affirmative care.” No puberty blockers. No wrong sex hormones. No double mastectomies, phalloplasties, or vaginoplaties. No tracheal shaves or shoulder reductions. No drag queen story hours or drag shows. No men in woman’s sports teams, locker rooms, spas, bathrooms, shelters, jails, or prisons. No “queer/nonbinary” clubs or books in schools. You kick the Democrats out of office and vote for only those candidates who sign a pledge to oppose “gender” nonsense.
Did you not read the posting guidelines?
Yes. I read (and understood) the posting guidelines before I posted my comments. The gist of the posting guidelines is that we not insult other commenters. We are not forbidden from expressing strong opinions about the topic at hand which is the lie that is "transgenderism."
I strongly disagree about it being harmless - Melbourne is currently having the dragQ phenomenon happen here and I am aghast why city councils are doing this despite it clearly being unpopular with the vast majority - even those who aren't "woke" to the gender war. This is all about two thigs: normalizing deviance to children who will grow up accepting non-normative sexual behaviour (ie grooming); and giving the FU to the public. "We are doing it whether you like it or not and there is nothing you can do about it" - it is about visibly rubbing the public's nose in it. How these people expect to get reelected I don't know.
I don't want to enter a long-running argument with you because I'm actually enjoying the conversation...
But there are two incongruent claims you've made: drag exposure to children isn't harmful (but transvestites are harmful to be around); the trans threat is deadly serious (but drag performances are clearly being used as a means of normalising transgenderism). These are inconsistent positions.
If you are not yet aware of this there have already been several documented instances of sexual offenders being unmasked as the drag performers who were hired for these shows.
Sexualizing children is not harmful? Have you seen the story hour of a grown man in a dress teaching children how to twerk? It’s adult entertainment, I went to a drag club for my bachelorette party!
There will always be ways for the vast majority of American women to secure a safe abortion, even if they have to cross the country or travel to a different country to do so. There are also several effective ways to prevent pregnancy, including pills, vaginal rings, patches, diaphrams, IUDs, condoms, and getting one's tubes tied or vasectomies. I, for one, am not willing to suck up to the totalitarian "transgender" propaganda now shoved down the throats of children, women, and men 24/7 just to preserve abortion rights.
Planned Parenthood, which used to stand up for women is now the second largest provider of puberty blockers and wrong sex hormones. to children and teenagers of both sexes. Planned Parenthood could have stuck to their knitting. But they allowed themselves to be captured by the dark money of the billionaire tranny mob -- Pritzker, Stryker, et al. They spell evil with a capital E.
So you can go right ahead and cast your vote for Biden. I voted for him in 2020, but I will never vote for that old goat again. On his first day in office, his very first day in office, he signed a bill requiring all companies that do business with the federal government to allow their employees to self declare themselves the opposite sex. And from this we got the world's first "female" four star admiral and assistant secretary of health, Dr." Rachel" Levine and also the luggage stealing Sam Brinton who was plucked from drag show obscurity to head our nation's nuclear waste disposal program. I don't even want to imagine what "trans" horrors we would see during Biden's second term.
Today, the Democrats are pushing for censorship with a captital C. And from that, springs totalitarianism with a capital T. But don't take my word for it. Just ask Matt Taibbi about the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board. It's currently on "pause." But the moment old Joe decides to reactivate it, watch out.
And, mind you, we're not talking about removing a few kinky books from the school library -- books that teach 12 year old boys how to perform lewd and lascivious sex acts with their friends and barnyard animals. We're talking subjecting everyone who criticizes the government in any way to censorship and deplatforming. Similar to Canada's new law, C11 which adds in fines and prison terms for violators. And in the age of AI and ChatGPT-4. That's the kiss of death for democracy.
https://www.racket.news/p/fact-check-nina-jankowicz-v-fox-news
Less than a minute after I posted my response, I came across this choice tidbit that was just posted on Wired. It begins: "The UK’s Secretive Web Surveillance Program Is Ramping Up -- A government effort to collect people’s internet records is moving beyond its test phase, but many details remain hidden from public view." George Orwell would be so proud.
https://www.wired.com/story/internet-connection-records-uk-surveillance/
This is disconcerting. There are many of us in the "gender"critical" world who happily accept an adult's right to bodily autonomy. Many of us accept the notion of gender dysphoria as a real condition that can be helped with a variety of medical interventions by consenting adults. We are happy to use "preferred pronouns" with adults. We also have concerns about social contagion, medicalization of children, and fairness in sports, and some sex segregated spaces. Name calling and vilifying trans identified adults does not support that cause.
Thank you, Tom, this is somewhat similar where I land. I have no political issues when adults transition and I think it is basic politeness to use preferred pronouns. And if people consider themselves nonbinary then I’m going to identify them as they prefer to be identified. I, too, believe gender dysphoria is real and yes, also believe it is currently a social contagion that harms children.
I am fine with drag queen story times in the public library or private venues, as long as a legal guardian is accompanying. I don’t think they belong in the public school system. I don’t think children need to be taught gender identity in grade school (1-6 grade). I differ in that I’m convinced there are biologically two genders (intersex is not its own gender) but I have no issue with older students having that discussion due to the reality of this time we’re living in.
I’m no expert but I trust Colin, Jesse and many others who clearly show that gender affirming care for children is not strongly supported by science as activists would have you believe and that we’re at risk of allowing real harm to come to children for something they will ultimately regret. However, I don’t think politics is necessarily the right place to debate these issues, instead it really has to be a societal, cultural and scientific discussion. That said, I’m old enough to observe that culture and social pressure influences science, and political choices are made on what is to be peer-reviewed and published so minority/dissenting opinions must be allowed space to flourish in this discussion ... and no, I don’t think activists want those voices to be heard.
And others of us are not "happy to" use "preferred pronouns." We are also not "happy" about adults harming themselves in a futile effort to address a mental problem by cutting the body up. We are not required to be "happy" about this to be good people. We are not required to "support this" to be actually caring people with a morally understandable point of view.
Like you, Tom, we are most concerned with what's being done to children. For people like me, it is so far beyond unacceptable there is no debate. We, I, recognize transing children for what it is: extreme, horror-movie-level child abuse.
Not enthusiastically "supporting" self-mortification, not "respecting" "pronouns" is neither vilification, nor is it name-calling. Nor is it disrespect, nor is it "abuse."
I hope people with your point of view will be able to understand this a little better, because there are many concerns that people like you, and people like me, share in common.
A toure de force, expertly synthesizes scattered thoughts I have had around trans and language games and cluster b personality traits, thank you.
Thank you. These ideas have been percolating for a number of years now.
Would you say teens of the sort you described gravitate towards puberty blockers in order to exert power/control over their own biological development?
Thomas Sowell doesn't have it right. It's actually the Enlightenment Liberal (as in "Liberal Democracy", not the political stance) position, held by both many conservative Republicans and Liberal Democrats. Most scientists are, as has been noted, Liberal. A few have gone Progressive and compromised their credibility and published pseudoscientific articles on the "Sex Spectrum", but most recognize postmodern views of the world as contradictory to a scientific worldview. The problem is, thatzmany liberals have been sucked in by the claims of Gender Theory that what they are about represents a more socially just version of the world. My mission at the moment is to explain what Gender Theory is and where it comes from -- that is, from the minds of academic philosophers who have no investment in facts whatsoever. And to encourage people to speak up! People are afraid of losing their jobs, and their indoctrinated friends. Please don't say that you represent the "conservative viewpoint". If we're going to fight this, we need to do it together. This isn't a political issue. It's about the fundamental nature of truth, and why it matters that it not defined by fiat by Judith Butler, who thinks she knows better than science, reason, and God, the nature of reality.
The article is wonderful, and I was excited to see an article by a psychologist! I also am a psychologist, and have been wanting to talk with colleagues about what diagnostic concepts apply to transgender clients, across the age range. My clinical experience with transgender clients has been with adults, mostly male.
I also work with adolescents, but haven't positioned myself as a gender therapist for adolescents. Even so, I see an increasing number of young women who at some point suddenly tell me that they have changed their gender identities and frequently also their names. It appears to be normal now, at least in my city, for female high school and college students to announce that they are "non-binary." It hasn't been normal for long, and I don't believe that it is the same phenomenon as whatever was going on with transgender people before the social media craze started up. Prior to the trans epidemic, however, we had the eating disorder epidemic, and those patients were from the same demographic: young white women from affluent families. Social media didn't exist then, but the clients generally were similarly focused on "ideal" images of girls and women presented in magazines and movies. Many clinicians who specialized in treating people with eating disorders thought that the clients were responding primarily to social pressure on women to be thin, which definitely was the message being sent by the magazines.
Many of the women with bulimia and anorexia nervosa did, however, turn out to have significant psychiatric problems, including dissociation from their bodies as a primary problem. They are also often described as presenting narcissistic, borderline and obsessive-compulsive patterns of behavior. The families of these clients in my experience also presented obvious and serious family dysfunction and oddities, such as marked emotional detachment from each other. In my opinion, all of these behaviors tend to get established initially in the family, and to be multigenerational in duration.
Is it possible that a high percentage of the current "trans fad" clients, as opposed to the historic trans clients (whatever they were like), have similar psychiatric problems to the 1980's eating disorder clients as well as coming from the same demographic? I have been perplexed, because it seems like there are a great many more of the trans fad clients than there were of the eating disorder clients, (and that was major)!
Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues have made a strong empirical case that increased self-reported depression and anxiety in young women is related to the amount of time they spend on social media. This does suggest that the epidemic of distress plus performative identity fluidity is situational. Christopher Rufo has suggested, based on his observations of colleges in Florida and elsewhere, that the woke culture on these campuses reinforces the behaviors associated with borderline personality disorder. This perspective is consistent with the theory that the current mental health crisis among young women is a reaction to pressure from their social milieu.
I wonder, however, if the narcissistic nature of social media experience is separate from the pre-existing personalities of the young people who create much of their own culture there. Is it possible that the woke movement is not so much a pre-planned Marxist movement as it is a dramatic increase in the rate of pathological narcissism in U.S. culture? Either of these options is clearly terrible, but I would prefer the Marxism explanation, given a choice.
It was great to read an article that addressed these issues! I would love to see more from Dr. Burgo and others!
It is the same cohort that has been susceptible to all these social contagions. Recovered memory syndrome too. Thanks for your added insights.
I think undiagnosed autism in females is quite possibly the link between these cohorts, or one of them. Autistic females seem particularly susceptible to social contagion; it used to be eating disorders, and it's currently trans.
"High-functioning" autism in females is apparently not uncommonly misdiagnosed as BPD. Obsessive-compulsive behaviours, dissociation from the body, and emotional detachment all fit the picture too.
I was diagnosed with ASD last year at 34, and it's a bit of a special interest of mine. The overlap of ASD with the new adolescent female trans cohort is fascinating and concerning.
I think autism is a vastly overused diagnostic label. In general, I think diagnosis is overrated. What does a symptom mean? What purpose does it serve? What are the defensive structures inherent in autism? Just slapping a label on it does nothing, as if it's an incurable disease.
It's a neurodevelopmental difference you're born with. A different way of processing information, sensing, relating to your body, and particularly communicating. There are various neurological differences that occur at a greater rate in autistic people, such as synaesthesia, difficulty with left and right and spatial awareness. Social communication with non-autistic people is not intuitive. I've spent my life being read and interpreted differently than intended, having difficulty interpreting others' facial expressions, and taking things literally.
I don't have the time nor expertise to answer your questions satisfactorily, of course.
I don't agree that it's overused, given the low rates of diagnosis. It may muddy the waters now that it's an umbrella term and people who would have been Asperger's, like me, are under the ASD umbrella.
Yes, it is "incurable", but I don't think it's considered a disease or a psychiatric condition like those you work with. It's more akin to dyslexia and Sensory Processing Disorder, in that the approach would be occupational therapy. But the likelihood for young people struggling with these differences to develop comorbid conditions such as social anxiety can complicate treatment.
I don't really agree with the dismissive take of "slapping a label on it" either. I have no words to describe how life-changing it is to finally understand my difficulties and differences with functioning and be able to work with my brain and abilities rather than against them. My diagnosis has helped with my anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and ability to meet my needs and organise myself on a daily basis. It's been a lifetime of self-blame to a process of understanding and accepting myself and improved functioning.
That sounds like a very good thing.
I propose that quality psychotherapy together with movement such as in Alexander body work and Feldenkrais physical therapy would help "identity-confused" patients, whether teens or adults. When my former husband "transitioned" I witnessed his increasingly vacant focus, lack of emotion (outside of rage, which became more frequent) and growing distance from his physicality. We trans widows often observe our former spouses detach from their sexed, physical self. I've designed movement for stress relief, and will always question the "sexologists" in their cult of inauthenticity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1SvNi3O1Sc&list=PLOFlPPQm71Ii-l-xoAlBZc5Iy9xZyfbUY
100% agree. Some kind of movement therapy is in order.
Great article, thank you.
Great essay, thank you
This was an amazing article! It made me really reflect.
It has only been in the last year that I have taken a deep interest and a concerted reading dive into this topic area. As a retired 71 year old clinical social worker who was primarily working as a therapist prior to retirement - I find your observations and your analysis to be the most insightful and the most plausible I have yet encountered in helping explain what is taking place for these young people. The generation nature (primarily Gen-Z) - linked to this phenomenon suggest a direct connection to the mass use of smart phones and social media in that generation beginning around 2012 - which is also when large scale meta-data show mental health began to seriously go off the rails for those young people, with depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation and self-harm dramatically increasing in subsequent years. Those sorts of mental health issues are alarming enough, but a future society in which large numbers of people fit mental and behavioral criteria for narcissism and borderline personality traits sounds completely disastrous when contemplated at a larger societal level.
You must have been reading Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge. Agree 100%.